Html5 Letter

HTML 5
Draft Recommendation — 7 July 2008

You can take part in this work. Join the working group's discussion list.
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One-page version:
http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/
Multiple-page version:
http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/
PDF print versions:

A4: http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/html5-a4.pdf
Letter: http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/html5-letter.pdf
Version history:
Twitter messages (non-editorial changes only): http://twitter.com/WHATWG
Commit-Watchers mailing list: http://lists.whatwg.org/listinfo.cgi/
commit-watchers-whatwg.org
Interactive Web interface: http://html5.org/tools/web-apps-tracker
Subversion interface: http://svn.whatwg.org/
HTML diff with the last version in Subversion: http://whatwg.org/specs/
web-apps/current-work/index-diff
Issues:
To send feedback: whatwg@whatwg.org
To view and vote on feedback: http://www.whatwg.org/issues/
Editor:
Ian Hickson, Google, ian@hixie.ch
© Copyright 2004-2008 Apple Computer, Inc., Mozilla Foundation, and Opera Software ASA.
You are granted a license to use, reproduce and create derivative works of this document.
Abstract
This specification evolves HTML and its related APIs to ease the authoring of Web-based
applications. Additions include the context menus, a direct-mode graphics canvas, inline popup
windows, and server-sent events. Heavy emphasis is placed on keeping the language backwards
compatible with existing legacy user agents and on keeping user agents backwards compatible
with existing legacy documents.
1
Status of this document
This is a work in progress! This document is changing on a daily if not hourly basis in
response to comments and as a general part of its development process. Comments are very
welcome, please send them to whatwg@whatwg.org. Thank you.
The current focus is in responding to the outstanding feedback. (There is a chart showing current
progress.)
Implementors should be aware that this specification is not stable. Implementors who are not
taking part in the discussions are likely to find the specification changing out from
under them in incompatible ways. Vendors interested in implementing this specification
before it eventually reaches the call for implementations should join the WHATWG mailing list
and take part in the discussions.
This specification is also being produced by the W3C HTML WG. The two specifications are
identical from the table of contents onwards.
This specification is intended to replace (be the new version of) what was previously the HTML4,
XHTML 1.x, and DOM2 HTML specifications.
Stability
Different parts of this specification are at different levels of maturity.
Some of the more major known issues are marked like this. There are many other issues that
have been raised as well; the issues given in this document are not the only known issues!
There are also some spec-wide issues that have not yet been addressed: case-sensitivity is a
very poorly handled topic right now, and the firing of events needs to be unified (right now
some bubble, some don't, they all use different text to fire events, etc). It would also be nice
to unify the rules on downloading content when attributes change (e.g. src attributes) -
should they initiate downloads when the element immediately, is inserted in the document,
when active scripts end, etc. This matters e.g. if an attribute is set twice in a row (does it hit
the network twice).
2
Table of contents
1. Introduction (page 16)
1.1 Background (page 16)
1.2 Scope (page 16)
1.3 Relationships to other specifications (page 17)
1.3.1 Relationship to HTML 4.01 and DOM2 HTML (page 17)
1.3.2 Relationship to XHTML 1.x (page 17)
1.3.3 Relationship to XHTML2 (page 17)
1.3.4 Relationship to Web Forms 2.0 and XForms (page 18)
1.3.5 Relationship to XUL, Flash, Silverlight, and other proprietary UI
languages (page 18)
1.4 HTML vs XHTML (page 18)
1.5 Structure of this specification (page 19)
1.5.1 How to read this specification (page 20)
2. Common infrastructure (page 21)

2.1 Conformance requirements (page 21)
2.1.1 Dependencies (page 25)
2.1.2 Features defined in other specifications (page 25)
2.1.3 Common conformance requirements for APIs exposed to JavaScript
(page 26)
2.2 Terminology (page 26)
2.3 URLs (page 29)
2.3.1 Terminology (page 29)
2.3.2 Parsing URLs (page 29)
2.3.3 Resolving URLs (page 31)
2.3.4 Dynamic changes to base URLs (page 33)
2.3.5 Interfaces for URL manipulation (page 34)
2.4 Common microsyntaxes (page 36)
2.4.1 Common parser idioms (page 36)
2.4.2 Boolean attributes (page 37)
2.4.3 Numbers (page 37)
2.4.3.1. Unsigned integers (page 37)
2.4.3.2. Signed integers (page 38)
2.4.3.3. Real numbers (page 39)
2.4.3.4. Ratios (page 40)
2.4.3.5. Percentages and dimensions (page 42)
2.4.3.6. Lists of integers (page 42)
2.4.4 Dates and times (page 44)
2.4.4.1. Specific moments in time (page 44)
2.4.4.2. Vaguer moments in time (page 48)
2.4.5 Time offsets (page 52)
2.4.6 Tokens (page 52)
2.4.7 Keywords and enumerated attributes (page 54)
2.4.8 References (page 54)
2.5 Common DOM interfaces (page 55)
3
2.5.1 Reflecting content attributes in DOM attributes (page 55)
2.5.2 Collections (page 57)
2.5.2.1. HTMLCollection (page 58)
2.5.2.2. HTMLFormControlsCollection (page 58)
2.5.2.3. HTMLOptionsCollection (page 59)
2.5.3 DOMTokenList (page 60)
2.5.4 DOMStringMap (page 62)
2.5.5 DOM feature strings (page 62)
2.6 Fetching resources (page 63)
2.7 Determining the type of a resource (page 63)
2.7.1 Content-Type metadata (page 63)
2.7.2 Content-Type sniffing: Web pages (page 64)
2.7.3 Content-Type sniffing: text or binary (page 65)
2.7.4 Content-Type sniffing: unknown type (page 66)
2.7.5 Content-Type sniffing: image (page 68)
2.7.6 Content-Type sniffing: feed or HTML (page 68)
3. Semantics and structure of HTML documents (page 71)

3.1 Introduction (page 71)
3.2 Documents (page 71)
3.2.1 Documents in the DOM (page 71)
3.2.2 Security (page 73)
3.2.3 Resource metadata management (page 73)
3.2.4 DOM tree accessors (page 75)
3.3 Elements (page 78)
3.3.1 Semantics (page 78)
3.3.2 Elements in the DOM (page 79)
3.3.3 Global attributes (page 81)
3.3.3.1. The id attribute (page 83)
3.3.3.2. The title attribute (page 83)
3.3.3.3. The lang (HTML only) and xml:lang (XML only)
attributes (page 84)
3.3.3.4. The xml:base attribute (XML only) (page 85)
3.3.3.5. The dir attribute (page 85)
3.3.3.6. The class attribute (page 85)
3.3.3.7. The style attribute (page 86)
3.3.3.8. Embedding custom non-visible data (page 86)
3.4 Content models (page 88)
3.4.1 Kinds of content (page 89)
3.4.1.1. Metadata content (page 89)
3.4.1.2. Flow content (page 89)
3.4.1.3. Sectioning content (page 90)
3.4.1.4. Heading content (page 90)
3.4.1.5. Phrasing content (page 90)
3.4.1.6. Embedded content (page 90)
3.4.1.7. Interactive content (page 91)
3.4.2 Transparent content models (page 91)
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3.5 Paragraphs (page 92)
3.6 APIs in HTML documents (page 93)
3.7 Dynamic markup insertion (page 94)
3.7.1 Controlling the input stream (page 94)
3.7.2 Dynamic markup insertion in HTML (page 96)
3.7.3 Dynamic markup insertion in XML (page 97)
4. The elements of HTML (page 100)

4.1 The root element (page 100)
4.1.1 The html element (page 100)
4.2 Document metadata (page 100)
4.2.1 The head element (page 100)
4.2.2 The title element (page 101)
4.2.3 The base element (page 102)
4.2.4 The link element (page 103)
4.2.5 The meta element (page 107)
4.2.5.1. Standard metadata names (page 108)
4.2.5.2. Other metadata names (page 108)
4.2.5.3. Pragma directives (page 110)
4.2.5.4. Specifying the document's character encoding (page
112)
4.2.6 The style element (page 113)
4.2.7 Styling (page 115)
4.3 Sections (page 116)
4.3.1 The body element (page 116)
4.3.2 The section element (page 117)
4.3.3 The nav element (page 117)
4.3.4 The article element (page 118)
4.3.5 The aside element (page 119)
4.3.6 The h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, and h6 elements (page 120)
4.3.7 The header element (page 121)
4.3.8 The footer element (page 122)
4.3.9 The address element (page 123)
4.3.10 Headings and sections (page 124)
4.3.10.1. Creating an outline (page 126)
4.3.10.2. Distinguishing site-wide headings from page headings
(page 130)
4.4 Grouping content (page 131)
4.4.1 The p element (page 131)
4.4.2 The hr element (page 132)
4.4.3 The br element (page 133)
4.4.4 The pre element (page 134)
4.4.5 The dialog element (page 135)
4.4.6 The blockquote element (page 137)
4.4.7 The ol element (page 137)
4.4.8 The ul element (page 139)
4.4.9 The li element (page 140)
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4.4.10 The dl element (page 142)
4.4.11 The dt element (page 144)
4.4.12 The dd element (page 145)
4.5 Text-level semantics (page 146)
4.5.1 The a element (page 146)
4.5.2 The q element (page 148)
4.5.3 The cite element (page 149)
4.5.4 The em element (page 150)
4.5.5 The strong element (page 152)
4.5.6 The small element (page 152)
4.5.7 The mark element (page 153)
4.5.8 The dfn element (page 156)
4.5.9 The abbr element (page 157)
4.5.10 The time element (page 158)
4.5.11 The progress element (page 160)
4.5.12 The meter element (page 163)
4.5.13 The code element (page 168)
4.5.14 The var element (page 169)
4.5.15 The samp element (page 170)
4.5.16 The kbd element (page 171)
4.5.17 The sub and sup elements (page 171)
4.5.18 The span element (page 173)
4.5.19 The i element (page 173)
4.5.20 The b element (page 174)
4.5.21 The bdo element (page 175)
4.5.22 The ruby element (page 176)
4.5.23 The rt element (page 177)
4.5.24 The rp element (page 178)
4.5.25 Usage summary (page 178)
4.5.26 Footnotes (page 179)
4.6 Edits (page 180)
4.6.1 The ins element (page 180)
4.6.2 The del element (page 182)
4.6.3 Attributes common to ins and del elements (page 182)
4.6.4 Edits and paragraphs (page 183)
4.6.5 Edits and lists (page 184)
4.7 Embedded content (page 185)
4.7.1 The figure element (page 185)
4.7.2 The img element (page 187)
4.7.3 The iframe element (page 197)
4.7.4 The embed element (page 202)
4.7.5 The object element (page 204)
4.7.6 The param element (page 208)
4.7.7 The video element (page 209)
4.7.7.1. Video and audio codecs for video elements (page 212)
4.7.8 The audio element (page 213)
4.7.8.1. Audio codecs for audio elements (page 214)
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4.7.9 The source element (page 214)
4.7.10 Media elements (page 217)
4.7.10.1. Error codes (page 218)
4.7.10.2. Location of the media resource (page 219)
4.7.10.3. Network states (page 220)
4.7.10.4. Loading the media resource (page 221)
4.7.10.5. Offsets into the media resource (page 226)
4.7.10.6. The ready states (page 228)
4.7.10.7. Playing the media resource (page 229)
4.7.10.8. Seeking (page 232)
4.7.10.9. Cue ranges (page 234)
4.7.10.10. User interface (page 236)
4.7.10.11. Time ranges (page 237)
4.7.10.12. Byte ranges (page 237)
4.7.10.13. Event summary (page 238)
4.7.10.14. Security and privacy considerations (page 240)
4.7.11 The canvas element (page 241)
4.7.11.1. The 2D context (page 244)
4.7.11.1.1. The canvas state (page 247)
4.7.11.1.2. Transformations (page 247)
4.7.11.1.3. Compositing (page 248)
4.7.11.1.4. Colors and styles (page 250)
4.7.11.1.5. Line styles (page 253)
4.7.11.1.6. Shadows (page 254)
4.7.11.1.7. Simple shapes (rectangles) (page 255)
4.7.11.1.8. Complex shapes (paths) (page 256)
4.7.11.1.9. Text (page 259)
4.7.11.1.10. Images (page 262)
4.7.11.1.11. Pixel manipulation (page 264)
4.7.11.1.12. Drawing model (page 268)
4.7.11.2. Color spaces and color correction (page 268)
4.7.11.3. Security with canvas elements (page 269)
4.7.12 The map element (page 270)
4.7.13 The area element (page 271)
4.7.14 Image maps (page 273)
4.7.15 MathML (page 276)
4.7.16 SVG (page 276)
4.7.17 Dimension attributes (page 277)
4.8 Tabular data (page 277)
4.8.1 Introduction (page 277)
4.8.2 The table element (page 277)
4.8.3 The caption element (page 281)
4.8.4 The colgroup element (page 281)
4.8.5 The col element (page 282)
4.8.6 The tbody element (page 282)
4.8.7 The thead element (page 283)
4.8.8 The tfoot element (page 284)
7
4.8.9 The tr element (page 285)
4.8.10 The td element (page 286)
4.8.11 The th element (page 287)
4.8.12 Attributes common to td and th elements (page 288)
4.8.13 Processing model (page 288)
4.8.13.1. Forming a table (page 289)
4.8.13.2. Forming relationships between data cells and header
cells (page 294)
4.9 Forms (page 296)
4.9.1 The form element (page 297)
4.9.2 The fieldset element (page 297)
4.9.3 The input element (page 297)
4.9.4 The button element (page 297)
4.9.5 The label element (page 297)
4.9.6 The select element (page 297)
4.9.7 The datalist element (page 297)
4.9.8 The optgroup element (page 297)
4.9.9 The option element (page 297)
4.9.10 The textarea element (page 297)
4.9.11 The output element (page 297)
4.9.12.1. Form submission (page 297)
4.10 Scripting (page 298)
4.10.1 The script element (page 298)
4.10.1.1. Scripting languages (page 303)
4.10.2 The noscript element (page 304)
4.10.3 The event-source element (page 306)
4.11 Interactive elements (page 307)
4.11.1 The details element (page 307)
4.11.2 The datagrid element (page 308)
4.11.2.1. The datagrid data model (page 310)
4.11.2.2. How rows are identified (page 310)
4.11.2.3. The data provider interface (page 311)
4.11.2.4. The default data provider (page 314)
4.11.2.4.1. Common default data provider method
definitions for cells (page 320)
4.11.2.5. Populating the datagrid element (page 321)
4.11.2.6. Updating the datagrid (page 326)
4.11.2.7. Requirements for interactive user agents (page 327)
4.11.2.8. The selection (page 328)
4.11.2.9. Columns and captions (page 330)
4.11.3 The command element (page 330)
4.11.4 The menu element (page 333)
4.11.4.1. Introduction (page 334)
4.11.4.2. Building menus and tool bars (page 334)
4.11.4.3. Context menus (page 335)
4.11.4.4. Toolbars (page 336)
8
4.11.5 Commands (page 337)
4.11.5.1. Using the a element to define a command (page 339)
4.11.5.2. Using the button element to define a command (page
340)
4.11.5.3. Using the input element to define a command (page
340)
4.11.5.4. Using the option element to define a command (page
341)
4.11.5.5. Using the command element to define a command (page
341)
4.12 Data Templates (page 342)
4.12.2 The datatemplate element (page 342)
4.12.3 The rule element (page 343)
4.12.4 The nest element (page 344)
4.12.5 Global attributes for data templates (page 344)
4.12.6.1. The originalContent DOM attribute (page 345)
4.12.6.2. The template attribute (page 345)
4.12.6.3. The ref attribute (page 347)
4.12.6.4. The NodeDataTemplate interface (page 348)
4.12.6.5. Mutations (page 348)
4.12.6.6. Updating the generated content (page 349)
4.13 Miscellaneous elements (page 352)
4.13.1 The legend element (page 352)
4.13.2 The div element (page 353)
5. Web browsers (page 354)

5.1 Browsing contexts (page 354)
5.1.1 Nested browsing contexts (page 355)
5.1.2 Auxiliary browsing contexts (page 356)
5.1.3 Secondary browsing contexts (page 356)
5.1.5 Threads (page 357)
5.1.6 Browsing context names (page 357)
5.2 The default view (page 358)
5.2.2 Constructors (page 361)
5.2.3 APIs for creating and navigating browsing contexts by name (page
362)
5.2.4 Accessing other browsing contexts (page 363)
5.3 Origin (page 363)
5.3.1 Relaxing the same-origin restriction (page 367)
5.4 Scripting (page 368)
5.4.1 Script execution contexts (page 368)
5.4.2 Security exceptions (page 369)
5.4.3 The javascript: protocol (page 369)
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5.4.4 Events (page 370)
5.4.4.1. Event handler attributes (page 370)
5.4.4.2. Event firing (page 374)
5.4.4.3. Events and the Window object (page 375)
5.4.4.4. Runtime script errors (page 375)
5.5 User prompts (page 376)
5.5.1 Simple dialogs (page 376)
5.5.2 Printing (page 377)
5.5.3 Dialogs implemented using separate documents (page 377)
5.5.4 Notifications (page 379)
5.6 Browser state (page 381)
5.6.1 Custom protocol and content handlers (page 382)
5.6.1.1. Security and privacy (page 384)
5.6.1.2. Sample user interface (page 385)
5.7 Offline Web applications (page 386)
5.7.2 Application caches (page 387)
5.7.3 The cache manifest syntax (page 388)
5.7.3.1. Writing cache manifests (page 388)
5.7.3.2. Parsing cache manifests (page 390)
5.7.4 Updating an application cache (page 393)
5.7.5.1. Changes to the networking model (page 399)
5.7.6 Application cache API (page 400)
5.7.7 Browser state (page 404)
5.8 Session history and navigation (page 404)
5.8.1 The session history of browsing contexts (page 404)
5.8.2 The History interface (page 406)
5.8.3 Activating state object entries (page 408)
5.8.4 The Location interface (page 408)
5.8.4.1. Security (page 409)
5.8.5 Implementation notes for session history (page 410)
5.9 Browsing the Web (page 410)
5.9.1 Navigating across documents (page 410)
5.9.2 Page load processing model for HTML files (page 414)
5.9.3 Page load processing model for XML files (page 415)
5.9.4 Page load processing model for text files (page 416)
5.9.5 Page load processing model for images (page 416)
5.9.6 Page load processing model for content that uses plugins (page
417)
5.9.7 Page load processing model for inline content that doesn't have a
DOM (page 417)
5.9.8 Navigating to a fragment identifier (page 418)
5.9.9 History traversal (page 418)
5.10 Structured client-side storage (page 420)
5.10.1 Storing name/value pairs (page 420)
10
5.10.1.2. The Storage interface (page 422)
5.10.1.3. The sessionStorage attribute (page 423)
5.10.1.4. The localStorage attribute (page 424)
5.10.1.5. The storage event (page 424)
5.10.1.5.1. Event definition (page 425)
5.10.1.6. Threads (page 425)
5.10.2 Database storage (page 426)
5.10.2.2. Databases (page 426)
5.10.2.3. Executing SQL statements (page 428)
5.10.2.4. Database query results (page 430)
5.10.2.5. Errors (page 431)
5.10.2.6. Processing model (page 431)
5.10.3 Disk space (page 433)
5.10.4 Privacy (page 433)
5.10.4.1. User tracking (page 433)
5.10.4.2. Cookie resurrection (page 434)
5.10.5.1. DNS spoofing attacks (page 435)
5.10.5.2. Cross-directory attacks (page 435)
5.10.5.3. Implementation risks (page 435)
5.10.5.4. SQL and user agents (page 435)
5.10.5.5. SQL injection (page 436)
5.11 Links (page 436)
5.11.1 Hyperlink elements (page 436)
5.11.2 Following hyperlinks (page 437)
5.11.2.1. Hyperlink auditing (page 438)
5.11.3 Link types (page 439)
5.11.3.1. Link type "alternate" (page 441)
5.11.3.2. Link type "archives" (page 441)
5.11.3.3. Link type "author" (page 442)
5.11.3.4. Link type "bookmark" (page 442)
5.11.3.5. Link type "external" (page 443)
5.11.3.6. Link type "feed" (page 443)
5.11.3.7. Link type "help" (page 444)
5.11.3.8. Link type "icon" (page 444)
5.11.3.9. Link type "license" (page 446)
5.11.3.10. Link type "nofollow" (page 446)
5.11.3.11. Link type "noreferrer" (page 446)
5.11.3.12. Link type "pingback" (page 446)
5.11.3.13. Link type "prefetch" (page 446)
5.11.3.14. Link type "search" (page 447)
5.11.3.15. Link type "stylesheet" (page 447)
5.11.3.16. Link type "sidebar" (page 447)
5.11.3.17. Link type "tag" (page 447)
5.11.3.18. Hierarchical link types (page 448)
11
5.11.3.18.1. Link type "index" (page 448)
5.11.3.18.2. Link type "up" (page 448)
5.11.3.19. Sequential link types (page 449)
5.11.3.19.1. Link type "first" (page 449)
5.11.3.19.2. Link type "last" (page 449)
5.11.3.19.3. Link type "next" (page 450)
5.11.3.19.4. Link type "prev" (page 450)
5.11.3.20. Other link types (page 450)
6. User Interaction (page 452)

6.1 Introduction (page 452)
6.2 The irrelevant attribute (page 452)
6.3 Activation (page 453)
6.4 Scrolling elements into view (page 453)
6.5 Focus (page 453)
6.5.1 Focus management (page 454)
6.5.2 Sequential focus navigation (page 455)
6.6 The text selection APIs (page 456)
6.6.1 APIs for the browsing context selection (page 457)
6.6.2 APIs for the text field selections (page 459)
6.7 The contenteditable attribute (page 460)
6.7.1 User editing actions (page 461)
6.7.2 Making entire documents editable (page 464)
6.8 Drag and drop (page 464)
6.8.2 The DragEvent and DataTransfer interfaces (page 465)
6.8.3 Events fired during a drag-and-drop action (page 466)
6.8.4 Drag-and-drop processing model (page 468)
6.8.4.1. When the drag-and-drop operation starts or ends in
another document (page 473)
6.8.4.2. When the drag-and-drop operation starts or ends in
another application (page 473)
6.8.5 The draggable attribute (page 473)
6.8.6 Copy and paste (page 474)
6.8.6.1. Copy to clipboard (page 474)
6.8.6.2. Cut to clipboard (page 474)
6.8.6.3. Paste from clipboard (page 474)
6.8.6.4. Paste from selection (page 474)
6.8.7 Security risks in the drag-and-drop model (page 475)
6.9 Undo history (page 475)
6.9.1 The UndoManager interface (page 476)
6.9.2 Undo: moving back in the undo transaction history (page 478)
6.9.3 Redo: moving forward in the undo transaction history (page 478)
6.9.4 The UndoManagerEvent interface and the undo and redo events
(page 479)
6.9.5 Implementation notes (page 479)
6.10 Command APIs (page 479)
12
7. Communication (page 486)
7.1 Event definitions (page 486)
7.2 Server-sent DOM events (page 486)
7.2.1 The RemoteEventTarget interface (page 487)
7.2.2 Connecting to an event stream (page 487)
7.2.3 Parsing an event stream (page 489)
7.2.4 Interpreting an event stream (page 490)
7.2.5 Notes (page 493)
7.3 Web sockets (page 493)
7.3.2 The WebSocket interface (page 494)
7.3.3 WebSocket Events (page 495)
7.3.4 The Web Socket protocol (page 496)
7.3.4.1. Client-side requirements (page 496)
7.3.4.1.1. Handshake (page 496)
7.3.4.1.2. Data framing (page 501)
7.3.4.2. Server-side requirements (page 502)
7.3.4.2.1. Minimal handshake (page 503)
7.3.4.2.2. Handshake details (page 503)
7.3.4.2.3. Data framing (page 504)
7.3.4.3. Closing the connection (page 505)
7.4 Cross-document messaging (page 505)
8. Repetition templates (page 508)
9. The HTML syntax (page 509)

9.1 Writing HTML documents (page 509)
9.1.1 The DOCTYPE (page 509)
9.1.2 Elements (page 510)
9.1.2.1. Start tags (page 511)
9.1.2.2. End tags (page 512)
9.1.2.3. Attributes (page 512)
9.1.2.4. Optional tags (page 514)
9.1.2.5. Restrictions on content models (page 515)
9.1.2.6. Restrictions on the contents of CDATA and RCDATA
elements (page 516)
9.1.3 Text (page 516)
9.1.3.1. Newlines (page 517)
9.1.4 Character references (page 517)
9.1.5 CDATA blocks (page 517)
9.1.6 Comments (page 518)
9.2 Parsing HTML documents (page 518)
9.2.1 Overview of the parsing model (page 519)
9.2.2 The input stream (page 521)
9.2.2.1. Determining the character encoding (page 521)
9.2.2.2. Character encoding requirements (page 526)
9.2.2.3. Preprocessing the input stream (page 527)
13
9.2.2.4. Changing the encoding while parsing (page 528)
9.2.3 Parse state (page 529)
9.2.3.1. The insertion mode (page 529)
9.2.3.2. The stack of open elements (page 530)
9.2.3.3. The list of active formatting elements (page 532)
9.2.3.4. The element pointers (page 533)
9.2.3.5. The scripting state (page 534)
9.2.4 Tokenisation (page 534)
9.2.4.1. Tokenising character references (page 550)
9.2.5 Tree construction (page 553)
9.2.5.1. Creating and inserting elements (page 554)
9.2.5.2. Closing elements that have implied end tags (page 555)
9.2.5.3. Foster parenting (page 555)
9.2.5.4. The "initial" insertion mode (page 556)
9.2.5.5. The "before html" insertion mode (page 559)
9.2.5.6. The "before head" insertion mode (page 559)
9.2.5.7. The "in head" insertion mode (page 560)
9.2.5.8. The "in head noscript" insertion mode (page 563)
9.2.5.9. The "after head" insertion mode (page 564)
9.2.5.10. The "in body" insertion mode (page 565)
9.2.5.11. The "in table" insertion mode (page 578)
9.2.5.12. The "in caption" insertion mode (page 580)
9.2.5.13. The "in column group" insertion mode (page 581)
9.2.5.14. The "in table body" insertion mode (page 582)
9.2.5.15. The "in row" insertion mode (page 583)
9.2.5.16. The "in cell" insertion mode (page 584)
9.2.5.17. The "in select" insertion mode (page 585)
9.2.5.18. The "in select in table" insertion mode (page 587)
9.2.5.19. The "in foreign content" insertion mode (page 587)
9.2.5.20. The "after body" insertion mode (page 589)
9.2.5.21. The "in frameset" insertion mode (page 589)
9.2.5.22. The "after frameset" insertion mode (page 591)
9.2.5.23. The "after after body" insertion mode (page 591)
9.2.5.24. The "after after frameset" insertion mode (page 592)
9.2.6 The end (page 592)
9.3 Namespaces (page 593)
9.4 Serializing HTML fragments (page 593)
9.5 Parsing HTML fragments (page 596)
9.6 Named character references (page 597)
10. Rendering and user-agent behavior (page 608)

10.1 Rendering and the DOM (page 608)
10.2 Rendering and menus/toolbars (page 609)
10.2.1 The 'icon' property (page 609)
10.3 Obsolete elements, attributes, and APIs (page 609)
10.3.1 The body element (page 609)
10.3.2 The applet element (page 610)
14
11. Things that you can't do with this specification because they are better handled
using other technologies that are further described herein (page 611)
11.1 Localization (page 611)
11.2 Declarative 2D vector graphics and animation (page 611)
11.3 Declarative 3D scenes (page 611)
11.4 Timers (page 611)
Index (page 613)
References (page 614)
Acknowledgements (page 615)
15
1. Introduction
1.1 Background
This section is non-normative.
The World Wide Web's markup language has always been HTML. HTML was primarily designed
as a language for semantically describing scientific documents, although its general design and
adaptations over the years has enabled it to be used to describe a number of other types of
documents.
The main area that has not been adequately addressed by HTML is a vague subject referred to
as Web Applications. This specification attempts to rectify this, while at the same time updating
the HTML specifications to address issues raised in the past few years.
1.2 Scope
This specification is limited to providing a semantic-level markup language and associated

semantic-level scripting APIs for authoring accessible pages on the Web ranging from static
documents to dynamic applications.
The scope of this specification does not include providing mechanisms for media-specific
customization of presentation (although default rendering rules for Web browsers are included
at the end of this specification, and several mechanisms for hooking into CSS are provided as
part of the language).
The scope of this specification does not include documenting every HTML or DOM feature
supported by Web browsers. Browsers support many features that are considered to be very bad
for accessibility or that are otherwise inappropriate. For example, the blink element is clearly
presentational and authors wishing to cause text to blink should instead use CSS.
The scope of this specification is not to describe an entire operating system. In particular,
hardware configuration software, image manipulation tools, and applications that users would be
expected to use with high-end workstations on a daily basis are out of scope. In terms of
applications, this specification is targeted specifically at applications that would be expected to
be used by users on an occasional basis, or regularly but from disparate locations, with low CPU
requirements. For instance online purchasing systems, searching systems, games (especially
multiplayer online games), public telephone books or address books, communications software
(e-mail clients, instant messaging clients, discussion software), document editing software, etc.
For sophisticated cross-platform applications, there already exist several proprietary solutions
(such as Mozilla's XUL, Adobe's Flash, or Microsoft's Silverlight). These solutions are evolving
faster than any standards process could follow, and the requirements are evolving even faster.
These systems are also significantly more complicated to specify, and are orders of magnitude
more difficult to achieve interoperability with, than the solutions described in this document.
16
Platform-specific solutions for such sophisticated applications (for example the MacOS X Core
APIs) are even further ahead.
1.3 Relationships to other specifications
1.3.1 Relationship to HTML 4.01 and DOM2 HTML
This specification represents a new version of HTML4, along with a new version of the associated
DOM2 HTML API. Migration from HTML4 to the format and APIs described in this specification
should in most cases be straightforward, as care has been taken to ensure that
backwards-compatibility is retained. [HTML4] [DOM2HTML]
1.3.2 Relationship to XHTML 1.x
This specification is intended to replace XHTML 1.0 as the normative definition of the XML
serialization of the HTML vocabulary. [XHTML10]
While this specification updates the semantics and requirements of the vocabulary defined by
XHTML Modularization 1.1 and used by XHTML 1.1, it does not attempt to provide a replacement
for the modularization scheme defined and used by those (and other) specifications, and
therefore cannot be considered a complete replacement for them. [XHTMLMOD] [XHTML11]
Thus, authors and implementors who do not need such a modularization scheme can consider
this specification a replacement for XHTML 1.x, but those who do need such a mechanism are
encouraged to continue using the XHTML 1.1 line of specifications.
1.3.3 Relationship to XHTML2
XHTML2 [XHTML2] defines a new HTML vocabulary with better features for hyperlinks,
multimedia content, annotating document edits, rich metadata, declarative interactive forms,
and describing the semantics of human literary works such as poems and scientific papers.
However, it lacks elements to express the semantics of many of the non-document types of
content often seen on the Web. For instance, forum sites, auction sites, search engines, online
shops, and the like, do not fit the document metaphor well, and are not covered by XHTML2.
This specification aims to extend HTML so that it is also suitable in these contexts.
XHTML2 and this specification use different namespaces and therefore can both be implemented
in the same XML processor.
17
1.3.4 Relationship to Web Forms 2.0 and XForms
This specification will eventually supplant Web Forms 2.0. The current Web Forms 2.0 draft can
be considered part of this specification for the time being; its features will eventually be merged
into this specification. [WF2]
As it stands today, this specification is unrelated and orthognoal to XForms. When the forms
features defined in HTML4 and Web Forms 2.0 are merged into this specification, then the
relationship to XForms described in the Web Forms 2.0 draft will apply to this specification.
[XForms]
1.3.5 Relationship to XUL, Flash, Silverlight, and other proprietary UI

languages
This specification is independent of the various proprietary UI languages that various vendors
provide. As an open, vendor-neutral language, HTML provides for a solution to the same
problems without the risk of vendor lock-in.
1.4 HTML vs XHTML
This specification defines an abstract language for describing documents and applications, and
some APIs for interacting with in-memory representations of resources that use this language.
The in-memory representation is known as "DOM5 HTML", or "the DOM" for short.
There are various concrete syntaxes that can be used to transmit resources that use this
abstract language, two of which are defined in this specification.
The first such concrete syntax is "HTML5". This is the format recommended for most authors. It
is compatible with all legacy Web browsers. If a document is transmitted with the MIME type
text/html, then it will be processed as an "HTML5" document by Web browsers.
The second concrete syntax uses XML, and is known as "XHTML5". When a document is
transmitted with an XML MIME type, such as application/xhtml+xml, then it is processed by an
XML processor by Web browsers, and treated as an "XHTML5" document. Authors are reminded
that the processing for XML and HTML differs; in particular, even minor syntax errors will prevent
an XML document from being rendered fully, whereas they would be ignored in the "HTML5"
syntax.
The "DOM5 HTML", "HTML5", and "XHTML5" representations cannot all represent the same
content. For example, namespaces cannot be represented using "HTML5", but they are
supported in "DOM5 HTML" and "XHTML5". Similarly, documents that use the noscript feature
18
can be represented using "HTML5", but cannot be represented with "XHTML5" and "DOM5
HTML". Comments that contain the string "-->" can be represented in "DOM5 HTML" but not in
"HTML5" and "XHTML5". And so forth.
1.5 Structure of this specification
This specification is divided into the following major sections:
Common Infrastructure (page 21)

The conformance classes, algorithms, definitions, and the common underpinnings of the
rest of the specification.
The DOM (page 71)

Documents are built from elements. These elements form a tree using the DOM. This
section defines the features of this DOM, as well as introducing the features common to all
elements, and the concepts used in defining elements.
Elements (page 100)

Each element has a predefined meaning, which is explained in this section. User agent
requirements for how to handle each element are also given, along with rules for authors on
how to use the element.
Web Browsers (page 354)

HTML documents do not exist in a vacuum — this section defines many of the features that
affect environments that deal with multiple pages, links between pages, and running
scripts.
User Interaction (page 452)

HTML documents can provide a number of mechanisms for users to interact with and modify
content, which are described in this section.
The Communication APIs (page 486)

Applications written in HTML often require mechanisms to communicate with remote
servers, as well as communicating with other applications from different domains running
on the same client.
Repetition Templates (page 508)

A mechanism to support repeating sections in forms.
The Language Syntax (page 509)

All of these features would be for naught if they couldn't be represented in a serialized form
and sent to other people, and so this section defines the syntax of HTML, along with rules
for how to parse HTML.
There are also a couple of appendices, defining rendering rules (page 608) for Web browsers
and listing areas that are out of scope (page 611) for this specification.
19
1.5.1 How to read this specification
This specification should be read like all other specifications. First, it should be read
cover-to-cover, multiple times. Then, it should be read backwards at least once. Then it should
be read by picking random sections from the contents list and following all the cross-references.
20
2. Common infrastructure
2.1 Conformance requirements
All diagrams, examples, and notes in this specification are non-normative, as are all sections
explicitly marked non-normative. Everything else in this specification is normative.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT",
"RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in the normative parts of this document are to be
interpreted as described in RFC2119. For readability, these words do not appear in all uppercase
letters in this specification. [RFC2119]
Requirements phrased in the imperative as part of algorithms (such as "strip any leading space
characters" or "return false and abort these steps") are to be interpreted with the meaning of
the key word ("must", "should", "may", etc) used in introducing the algorithm.
This specification describes the conformance criteria for user agents (relevant to implementors)
and documents (relevant to authors and authoring tool implementors).
Note: There is no implied relationship between document conformance

requirements and implementation conformance requirements. User agents are
not free to handle non-conformant documents as they please; the processing
model described in this specification applies to implementations regardless of
the conformity of the input documents.
User agents fall into several (overlapping) categories with different conformance requirements.
Web browsers and other interactive user agents

Web browsers that support XHTML (page 24) must process elements and attributes from the
HTML namespace (page 593) found in XML documents (page 71) as described in this
specification, so that users can interact with them, unless the semantics of those elements
have been overridden by other specifications.
A conforming XHTML processor would, upon finding an XHTML script element in an

XML document, execute the script contained in that element. However, if the element is
found within an XSLT transformation sheet (assuming the UA also supports XSLT), then
the processor would instead treat the script element as an opaque element that forms
part of the transform.
Web browsers that support HTML (page 24) must process documents labeled as text/html
as described in this specification, so that users can interact with them.
Non-interactive presentation user agents

User agents that process HTML and XHTML documents purely to render non-interactive
versions of them must comply to the same conformance criteria as Web browsers, except
that they are exempt from requirements regarding user interaction.
21
Note: Typical examples of non-interactive presentation user agents are
printers (static UAs) and overhead displays (dynamic UAs). It is expected
that most static non-interactive presentation user agents will also opt to
lack scripting support (page 22).
A non-interactive but dynamic presentation UA would still execute scripts, allowing

forms to be dynamically submitted, and so forth. However, since the concept of "focus"
is irrelevant when the user cannot interact with the document, the UA would not need
to support any of the focus-related DOM APIs.
User agents with no scripting support

Implementations that do not support scripting (or which have their scripting features
disabled entirely) are exempt from supporting the events and DOM interfaces mentioned in
this specification. For the parts of this specification that are defined in terms of an events
model or in terms of the DOM, such user agents must still act as if events and the DOM
were supported.
Note: Scripting can form an integral part of an application. Web browsers

that do not support scripting, or that have scripting disabled, might be
unable to fully convey the author's intent.
Conformance checkers
Conformance checkers must verify that a document conforms to the applicable
conformance criteria described in this specification. Automated conformance checkers are
exempt from detecting errors that require interpretation of the author's intent (for example,
while a document is non-conforming if the content of a blockquote element is not a quote,
conformance checkers running without the input of human judgement do not have to check
that blockquote elements only contain quoted material).
Conformance checkers must check that the input document conforms when parsed without
a browsing context (page 354) (meaning that no scripts are run, and that the parser's
scripting flag (page 534) is disabled), and should also check that the input document
conforms when parsed with a browsing context (page 354) in which scripts execute, and
that the scripts never cause non-conforming states to occur other than transiently during
script execution itself. (This is only a "SHOULD" and not a "MUST" requirement because it
has been proven to be impossible. [HALTINGPROBLEM])
The term "HTML5 validator" can be used to refer to a conformance checker that itself
conforms to the applicable requirements of this specification.
XML DTDs cannot express all the conformance requirements of this

specification. Therefore, a validating XML processor and a DTD cannot
constitute a conformance checker. Also, since neither of the two authoring
formats defined in this specification are applications of SGML, a validating
SGML system cannot constitute a conformance checker either.
To put it another way, there are three types of conformance criteria:
22
1. Criteria that can be expressed in a DTD.
2. Criteria that cannot be expressed by a DTD, but can still be checked

by a machine.
3. Criteria that can only be checked by a human.
A conformance checker must check for the first two. A simple DTD-based
validator only checks for the first class of errors and is therefore not a
conforming conformance checker according to this specification.
Data mining tools

Applications and tools that process HTML and XHTML documents for reasons other than to
either render the documents or check them for conformance should act in accordance to
the semantics of the documents that they process.
A tool that generates document outlines (page 126) but increases the nesting level for
each paragraph and does not increase the nesting level for each section would not be
conforming.
Authoring tools and markup generators

Authoring tools and markup generators must generate conforming documents.
Conformance criteria that apply to authors also apply to authoring tools, where appropriate.
Authoring tools are exempt from the strict requirements of using elements only for their
specified purpose, but only to the extent that authoring tools are not yet able to determine
author intent.
For example, it is not conforming to use an address element for arbitrary contact
information; that element can only be used for marking up contact information for the
author of the document or section. However, since an authoring tool is likely unable to
determine the difference, an authoring tool is exempt from that requirement.
Note: In terms of conformance checking, an editor is therefore required to

output documents that conform to the same extent that a conformance
checker will verify.
When an authoring tool is used to edit a non-conforming document, it may preserve the
conformance errors in sections of the document that were not edited during the editing
session (i.e. an editing tool is allowed to round-trip erroneous content). However, an
authoring tool must not claim that the output is conformant if errors have been so
preserved.
Authoring tools are expected to come in two broad varieties: tools that work from structure
or semantic data, and tools that work on a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get media-specific
editing basis (WYSIWYG).
23
The former is the preferred mechanism for tools that author HTML, since the structure in the
source information can be used to make informed choices regarding which HTML elements
and attributes are most appropriate.
However, WYSIWYG tools are legitimate. WYSIWYG tools should use elements they know are
appropriate, and should not use elements that they do not know to be appropriate. This
might in certain extreme cases mean limiting the use of flow elements to just a few
elements, like div, b, i, and span and making liberal use of the style attribute.
All authoring tools, whether WYSIWYG or not, should make a best effort attempt at enabling
users to create well-structured, semantically rich, media-independent content.
Some conformance requirements are phrased as requirements on elements, attributes, methods

or objects. Such requirements fall into two categories: those describing content model
restrictions, and those describing implementation behavior. The former category of
requirements are requirements on documents and authoring tools. The second category are
requirements on user agents.
Conformance requirements phrased as algorithms or specific steps may be implemented in any

manner, so long as the end result is equivalent. (In particular, the algorithms defined in this
specification are intended to be easy to follow, and not intended to be performant.)
User agents may impose implementation-specific limits on otherwise unconstrained inputs, e.g.
to prevent denial of service attacks, to guard against running out of memory, or to work around
platform-specific limitations.
For compatibility with existing content and prior specifications, this specification describes two
authoring formats: one based on XML (referred to as XHTML5), and one using a custom format
(page 518) inspired by SGML (referred to as HTML5). Implementations may support only one of
these two formats, although supporting both is encouraged.
XHTML (page 24) documents (XML documents (page 71) using elements from the HTML
namespace (page 593)) that use the new features described in this specification and that are
served over the wire (e.g. by HTTP) must be sent using an XML MIME type such as application/
xml or application/xhtml+xml and must not be served as text/html. [RFC3023]
Such XML documents may contain a DOCTYPE if desired, but this is not required to conform to
this specification.
Note: According to the XML specification, XML processors are not guaranteed
to process the external DTD subset referenced in the DOCTYPE. This means,
for example, that using entity references for characters in XHTML documents
is unsafe (except for <, >, &, " and ').
HTML documents (page 24), if they are served over the wire (e.g. by HTTP) must be labeled with
the text/html MIME type.
The language in this specification assumes that the user agent expands all entity references,
and therefore does not include entity reference nodes in the DOM. If user agents do include
entity reference nodes in the DOM, then user agents must handle them as if they were fully
24
expanded when implementing this specification. For example, if a requirement talks about an
element's child text nodes, then any text nodes that are children of an entity reference that is a
child of that element would be used as well. Entity references to unknown entities must be
treated as if they contained just an empty text node for the purposes of the algorithms defined
in this specification.
2.1.1 Dependencies
This specification relies on several other underlying specifications.
XML
Implementations that support XHTML5 must support some version of XML, as well as its
corresponding namespaces specification, because XHTML5 uses an XML serialization with
namespaces. [XML] [XMLNAMES]
DOM
The Document Object Model (DOM) is a representation — a model — of a document and its
content. The DOM is not just an API; the conformance criteria of HTML implementations are
defined, in this specification, in terms of operations on the DOM. [DOM3CORE]
Implementations must support some version of DOM Core and DOM Events, because this
specification is defined in terms of the DOM, and some of the features are defined as
extensions to the DOM Core interfaces. [DOM3CORE] [DOM3EVENTS]
ECMAScript
Implementations that use ECMAScript to implement the APIs defined in this specification
must implement them in a manner consistent with the ECMAScript Bindings defined in the
Web IDL specification, as this specification uses that specification's terminology. [WebIDL]
Media Queries
Implementations must support some version of the Media Queries language. [MQ]
This specification does not require support of any particular network transport protocols, style
sheet language, scripting language, or any of the DOM and WebAPI specifications beyond those
described above. However, the language described by this specification is biased towards CSS
as the styling language, ECMAScript as the scripting language, and HTTP as the network
protocol, and several features assume that those languages and protocols are in use.
Note: This specification might have certain additional requirements on

character encodings, image formats, audio formats, and video formats in the
respective sections.
2.1.2 Features defined in other specifications
this section will be removed at some point
25
Some elements are defined in terms of their DOM textContent attribute. This is an attribute
defined on the Node interface in DOM3 Core. [DOM3CORE]
Should textContent be defined differently for dir="" and <bdo>? Should we come up with an
alternative to textContent that handles those and other things, like alt=""?
The interface DOMTimeStamp is defined in DOM3 Core. [DOM3CORE]
The term activation behavior is used as defined in the DOM3 Events specification.
[DOM3EVENTS] At the time of writing, DOM3 Events hadn't yet been updated to define that
phrase.
The rules for handling alternative style sheets are defined in the CSS object model specification.
[CSSOM]
See http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/~checkout~/csswg/cssom/Overview.html?content-type=text/
html;%20charset=utf-8
2.1.3 Common conformance requirements for APIs exposed to JavaScript
This section will eventually be removed in favour of WebIDL.
A lot of arrays/lists/collection (page 57)s in this spec assume zero-based indexes but use the
term "indexth" liberally. We should define those to be zero-based and be clearer about this.
Unless otherwise specified, if a DOM attribute that is a floating point number type (float) is
assigned an Infinity or Not-a-Number value, a NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR exception must be raised.
Unless otherwise specified, if a method with an argument that is a floating point number type
(float) is passed an Infinity or Not-a-Number value, a NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR exception must be
raised.
Unless otherwise specified, if a method is passed fewer arguments than is defined for that
method in its IDL definition, a NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR exception must be raised.
Unless otherwise specified, if a method is passed more arguments than is defined for that
method in its IDL definition, the excess arguments must be ignored.
2.2 Terminology
This specification refers to both HTML and XML attributes and DOM attributes, often in the same
context. When it is not clear which is being referred to, they are referred to as content
26
attributes for HTML and XML attributes, and DOM attributes for those from the DOM.
Similarly, the term "properties" is used for both ECMAScript object properties and CSS
properties. When these are ambiguous they are qualified as object properties and CSS
properties respectively.
To ease migration from HTML to XHTML, UAs conforming to this specification will place elements
in HTML in the http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml namespace, at least for the purposes of the
DOM and CSS. The term "elements in the HTML namespace", or "HTML elements" for
short, when used in this specification, thus refers to both HTML and XHTML elements.
Unless otherwise stated, all elements defined or mentioned in this specification are in the
http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml namespace, and all attributes defined or mentioned in this
specification have no namespace (they are in the per-element partition).
When an XML name, such as an attribute or element name, is referred to in the form
prefix:localName, as in xml:id or svg:rect, it refers to a name with the local name localName
and the namespace given by the prefix, as defined by the following table:
xml
http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace
html
http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml
svg
http://www.w3.org/2000/svg
Attribute names are said to be XML-compatible if they match the Name production defined in
XML, they contain no U+003A COLON (:) characters, and they do not start with three characters
"xml". [XML]
The term HTML documents (page 71) is sometimes used in contrast with XML documents (page
71) to specifically mean documents that were parsed using an HTML parser (page 518) (as
opposed to using an XML parser or created purely through the DOM).
Generally, when the specification states that a feature applies to HTML or XHTML, it also
includes the other. When a feature specifically only applies to one of the two languages, it is
called out by explicitly stating that it does not apply to the other format, as in "for HTML, ... (this
does not apply to XHTML)".
This specification uses the term document to refer to any use of HTML, ranging from short static
documents to long essays or reports with rich multimedia, as well as to fully-fledged interactive
applications.
The term root element, when not explicitly qualified as referring to the document's root
element, means the furthest ancestor element node of whatever node is being discussed, or the
node itself if it has no ancestors. When the node is a part of the document, then that is indeed
the document's root element; however, if the node is not currently part of the document tree,
the root element will be an orphaned node.
27
An element is said to have been inserted into a document when its root element (page 27)
changes and is now the document's root element (page 27).
The term tree order means a pre-order, depth-first traversal of DOM nodes involved (through
the parentNode/childNodes relationship).
When it is stated that some element or attribute is ignored, or treated as some other value, or
handled as if it was something else, this refers only to the processing of the node after it is in the
DOM. A user agent must not mutate the DOM in such situations.
For simplicity, terms such as shown, displayed, and visible might sometimes be used when
referring to the way a document is rendered to the user. These terms are not meant to imply a
visual medium; they must be considered to apply to other media in equivalent ways.
The construction "a Foo object", where Foo is actually an interface, is sometimes used instead of
the more accurate "an object implementing the interface Foo".
A DOM attribute is said to be getting when its value is being retrieved (e.g. by author script), and
is said to be setting when a new value is assigned to it.
If a DOM object is said to be live, then that means that any attributes returning that object must
always return the same object (not a new object each time), and the attributes and methods on
that object must operate on the actual underlying data, not a snapshot of the data.
The terms fire and dispatch are used interchangeably in the context of events, as in the DOM
Events specifications. [DOM3EVENTS]
The term text node refers to any Text node, including CDATASection nodes; specifically, any
Node with node type TEXT_NODE (3) or CDATA_SECTION_NODE (4). [DOM3CORE]
The term plugin is used to mean any content handler, typically a third-party content handler,
for Web content types that are not supported by the user agent natively, or for content types
that do not expose a DOM, that supports rendering the content as part of the user agent's
interface.
One example of a plugin would be a PDF viewer that is instantiated in a browsing context
(page 354) when the user navigates to a PDF file. This would count as a plugin regardless of
whether the party that implemented the PDF viewer component was the same as that which
implemented the user agent itself. However, a PDF viewer application that launches
separate from the user agent (as opposed to using the same interface) is not a plugin by
this definition.
Note: This specification does not define a mechanism for interacting with
plugins, as it is expected to be user-agent- and platform-specific. Some UAs
might opt to support a plugin mechanism such as the Netscape Plugin API;
others might use remote content converters or have built-in support for
certain types. [NPAPI]
⚠Warning! Browsers should take extreme care when interacting with external
content intended for plugins (page 28). When third-party software is run with the
28
same privileges as the user agent itself, vulnerabilities in the third-party software
become as dangerous as those in the user agent.
Some of the algorithms in this specification, for historical reasons, require the user agent to
pause until some condition has been met. While a user agent is paused, it must ensure that no
scripts execute (e.g. no event handlers, no timers, etc). User agents should remain responsive to
user input while paused, however, albeit without letting the user interact with Web pages where
that would involve invoking any script.
2.3 URLs
This specification defines the term URL (page 29), and defines various algorithms for dealing
with URLs, because for historical reasons the rules defined by the URI and IRI specifications are
not a complete description of what HTML user agents need to implement to be compatible with
Web content.
2.3.1 Terminology
A URL is a string used to identify a resource. A URL (page 29) is always associated with a
Document, either explicitly when the URL is created or defined; or through a DOM node, in which
case the associated Document is the node's Document; or through a script, in which case the
associated Document is the script's script document context (page 369).
A URL (page 29) is a valid URL if at least one of the following conditions holds:
• The URL (page 29) is a valid URI reference [RFC3986].
• The URL (page 29) is a valid IRI reference and it has no query component. [RFC3987]
• The URL (page 29) is a valid IRI reference and its query component contains no
unescaped non-ASCII characters. [RFC3987]
• The URL (page 29) is a valid IRI reference and the character encoding (page 75) of the
URL's Document is UTF-8 or UTF-16. [RFC3987]
Note: The term "URL" in this specification is used in a manner distinct from the
precise technical meaning it is given in RFC 3986. Readers familiar with that
RFC will find it easier to read this specification if they pretend the term "URL"
as used herein is really called something else altogether.
2.3.2 Parsing URLs
To parse a URL url into its component parts, the user agent must use the following steps:
1. Strip leading and trailing space characters (page 36) from url.
29
2. Parse url in the manner defined by RFC 3986, with the following exceptions:
• Add all characters with codepoints less than or equal to U+0020 or greater than
or equal to U+007F to the <unreserved> production.
• Add the characters U+0022, U+003C, U+003E, U+005B .. U+005E, U+0060,

and U+007B .. U+007D to the <unreserved> production.
• Add a single U+0025 PERCENT SIGN character as a second alternative way of

matching the <pct-encoded> production, except when the <pct-encoded> is
used in the <reg-name> production.
• Add the U+0023 NUMBER SIGN character to the characters allowed in the
<fragment> production.
3. If url doesn't match the <URI-reference> production, even after the above changes are
made to the ABNF definitions, then parsing the URL fails with an error. [RFC3986]
Otherwise, parsing url was successful; the components of the URL are substrings of url
defined as follows:
<scheme>
The substring matched by the <scheme> production, if any.
<host>
The substring matched by the <host> production, if any.
<port>
The substring matched by the <port> production, if any.
<hostport>
If there is a <scheme> component and a <port> component and the port given by
the <port> component is different than the default port defined for the protocol
given by the <scheme> component, then <hostport> is the substring that starts
with the substring matched by the <host> production and ends with the substring
matched by the <port> production, and includes the colon in between the two.
Otherwise, it is the same as the <host> component.
<path>
The substring matched by one of the following productions, if one of them was
matched:
• <path-abempty>
• <path-absolute>
• <path-noscheme>
• <path-rootless>
• <path-empty>
<query>
The substring matched by the <query> production, if any.
30
<fragment>
The substring matched by the <fragment> production, if any.
2.3.3 Resolving URLs
Relative URLs are resolved relative to a base URL. The base URL of a URL (page 29) is the
absolute URL (page 33) obtained as follows:
↪ If the URL to be resolved was passed to an API

The base URL is the document base URL (page 31) of the script's script document
context (page 369).
↪ If the URL to be resolved is from the value of a content attribute

The base URL is the base URI of the element that the attribute is on, as defined by the
XML Base specification, with the base URI of the document entity being defined as the
document base URL (page 31) of the Document that owns the element.
For the purposes of the XML Base specification, user agents must act as if all Document
objects represented XML documents.
Note: It is possible for xml:base attributes to be present even in HTML

fragments, as such attributes can be added dynamically using script.
(Such scripts would not be conforming, however, as xml:base attributes
are not allowed in HTML documents (page 71).)
↪ If the URL to be resolved was found in an offline application cache manifest

The base URL is the URL of the application cache (page 387) manifest (page 387).
The document base URL of a Document is the absolute URL (page 33) obtained by running
these steps:
1. If there is no base element that is both a child of the head element (page 75) and has an
href attribute, then the document base URL (page 31) is the document's address.
2. Otherwise, let url be the value of the href attribute of the first such element.
3. Resolve (page 31) the url URL, using the document's address as the base URL (page 31)
(thus, the base href attribute isn't affect by xml:base attributes).
4. The document base URL (page 31) is the result of the previous step if it was successful;
otherwise it is the document's address.
To resolve a URL to an absolute URL (page 33) the user agent must use the following steps.
Resolving a URL can result in an error, in which case the URL is not resolvable.
1. Let url be the URL (page 29) being resolved.
2. Let document be the Document associated with (page 29) url.
31
3. Let encoding be the character encoding (page 75) of document.
4. If encoding is UTF-16, then change it to UTF-8.
5. Let base be the base URL (page 31) for url. (This is an absolute URL (page 33).)
6. Parse (page 29) url into its component parts.
7. If parsing url resulted in a <host> (page 30) component, then replace the matching
subtring of url with the string that results from expanding any sequences of
percent-encoded octets in that component that are valid UTF-8 sequences into Unicode
characters as defined by UTF-8.
If any percent-encoded octets in that component are not valid UTF-8 sequences, then
return an error and abort these steps.
Apply the IDNA ToASCII algorithm to the matching substring, with both the
AllowUnassigned and UseSTD3ASCIIRules flags set. Replace the matching substring with
the result of the ToASCII algorithm.
If ToASCII fails to convert one of the components of the string, e.g. because it is too long
or because it contains invalid characters, then return an error and abort these steps.
[RFC3490]
8. If parsing url resulted in a <path> (page 30) component, then replace the matching
substring of url with the string that results from applying the following steps to each
character other than U+0025 PERCENT SIGN (%) that doesn't match the original <path>
production defined in RFC 3986:
1. Encode the character into a sequence of octets as defined by UTF-8.
2. Replace the character with the percent-encoded form of those octets. [RFC3986]
For instance if url was "//example.com/a^b☺c%FFd%z/?e", then the <path> (page

30) component's substring would be "/a^b☺c%FFd%z/" and the two characters that
would have to be escaped would be "^" and "☺". The result after this step was
applied would therefore be that url now had the value "//example.com/
a%5Eb%E2%98%BAc%FFd%z/?e".
9. If parsing url resulted in a <query> (page 30) component, then replace the matching
substring of url with the string that results from applying the following steps to each
character other than U+0025 PERCENT SIGN (%) that doesn't match the original
<query> production defined in RFC 3986:
1. If the character in question cannot be expressed in the encoding encoding, then

replace it with a single 0x3F octet (an ASCII question mark) and skip the
remaining substeps for this character.
2. Encode the character into a sequence of octets as defined by the encoding

encoding.
32
3. Replace the character with the percent-encoded form of those octets. [RFC3986]
10. Apply the algorithm described in RFC 3986 section 5.2 Relative Resolution, using url as
the potentially relative URI reference (R), and base as the base URI (Base). [RFC3986]
11. Apply any relevant conformance criteria of RFC 3986 and RFC 3987, returning an error
and aborting these steps if appropriate. [RFC3986] [RFC3987]
For instance, if an absolute URI that would be returned by the above algorithm
violates the restrictions specific to its scheme, e.g. a data: URI using the "//"
server-based naming authority syntax, then user agents are to treat this as an error
instead.
12. Let result be the target URI (T) returned by the Relative Resolution algorithm.
13. If result uses a scheme with a server-based naming authority, replace all U+005C
REVERSE SOLIDUS (\) characters in result with U+002F SOLIDUS (/) characters.
14. Return result.
A URL (page 29) is an absolute URL if resolving (page 31) it results in the same URL without an
error.
2.3.4 Dynamic changes to base URLs
When an xml:base attribute changes, the attribute's element, and all descendant elements, are
affected by a base URL change (page 33).
When a document's document base URL (page 31) changes, all elements in that document are
affected by a base URL change (page 33).
When an element is moved from one document to another, if the two documents have different
base URLs (page 31), then that element and all its descendants are affected by a base URL
change (page 33).
When an element is affected by a base URL change, it must act as described in the following
list:
↪ If the element is a hyperlink element (page 436)

If the absolute URL (page 33) identified by the hyperlink is being shown to the user, or if
any data derived from that URL is affecting the display, then the href attribute should
be reresolved (page 31) and the UI updated appropriately.
For example, the CSS :link/:visited pseudo-classes might have been affected.
If the hyperlink has a ping attribute and its absolute URL(s) (page 33) are being shown
to the user, then the ping attribute's tokens should be reresolved (page 31) and the UI
updated appropriately.
33
↪ If the element is a blockquote, q, ins, or del element with a cite attribute
If the absolute URL (page 33) identified by the cite attribute is being shown to the user,
or if any data derived from that URL is affecting the display, then the it should be
reresolved (page 31) and the UI updated appropriately.
↪ Otherwise
The element is not directly affected.
Changing the base URL doesn't affect the image displayed by img elements,
although subsequent accesses of the src DOM attribute from script will return a
new absolute URL (page 33) that might no longer correspond to the image being
shown.
2.3.5 Interfaces for URL manipulation
An interface that has a complement of URL decomposition attributes will have seven
attributes with the following definitions:
attribute DOMString protocol;

attribute DOMString host;
attribute DOMString hostname;
attribute DOMString port;
attribute DOMString pathname;
attribute DOMString search;
attribute DOMString hash;
The attributes defined to be URL decomposition attributes must act as described for the
attributes with the same corresponding names in this section.
In addition, an interface with a complement of URL decomposition attributes will define an

input, which is a URL (page 29) that the attributes act on, and a common setter action, which
is a set of steps invoked when any of the attributes' setters are invoked.
The seven URL decomposition attributes have similar requirements.
On getting, if the input (page 34) fulfills the condition given in the "getter condition" column
corresponding to the attribute in the table below, the user agent must return the part of the
input (page 34) URL given in the "component" column, with any prefixes specified in the "prefix"
column appropriately added to the start of the string and any suffixes specified in the "suffix"
column appropriately added to the end of the string. Otherwise, the attribute must return the
empty string.
On setting, the new value must first be mutated as described by the "setter preprocessor"
column, then mutated by %-escaping any characters in the new value that are not valid in the
relevant component as given by the "component" column. Then, if the resulting new value fulfills
the condition given in the "setter condition" column, the user agent must make a new string
output by replacing the component of the URL given by the "component" column in the input
(page 34) URL with the new value; otherwise, the user agent must let output be equal to the
34
input (page 34). Finally, the user agent must invoke the common setter action (page 34) with
the value of output.
When replacing a component in the URL, if the component is part of an optional group in the
URL syntax consisting of a character followed by the component, the component (including its
prefix character) must be included even if the new value is the empty string.
Note: The previous paragraph applies in particular to the ":" before a <port>
component, the "?" before a <query> component, and the "#" before a
<fragment> component.
For the purposes of the above definitions, URLs must be parsed using the URL parsing rules
(page 29) defined in this specification.
Attribute Component Getter Condition Prefix Suffix Setter Preprocessor Setter

Condition
protocol <scheme> — — U+003A Remove all trailing U+003A The new
(page 30) COLON COLON (":") characters value is
(":") not the
empty
string
host <hostport> input (page 34) is — — — —
(page 30) hierarchical and uses a
server-based naming
authority
hostname <host> input (page 34) is — — Remove all leading U+002F —
(page 30) hierarchical and uses a SOLIDUS ("/") characters
server-based naming
authority
port <port> input (page 34) is — — Remove any characters in the —
(page 30) hierarchical, uses a new value that are not in the
server-based naming range U+0030 DIGIT ZERO ..
authority, and U+0039 DIGIT NINE. If the
contained a <port> resulting string is empty, set it
(page 30) component to a single U+0030 DIGIT ZERO
(possibly an empty character ('0').
one)
pathname <path> input (page 34) is — — If it has no leading U+002F —
(page 30) hierarchical SOLIDUS ("/") character,
prepend a U+002F SOLIDUS
("/") character to the new value
search <query> input (page 34) is U+003F — Remove one leading U+003F —
(page 30) hierarchical, and QUESTION QUESTION MARK ("?")
contained a <query> MARK character, if any
(page 30) component ("?")
(possibly an empty
one)
hash <fragment> input (page 34) U+0023 — Remove one leading U+0023 —
(page 31) contained a NUMBER NUMBER SIGN ("#") character, if
<fragment> (page 31) SIGN ("#") any
component (possibly
an empty one)
35
The table below demonstrates how the getter condition for search results in different
results depending on the exact original syntax of the URL:
Input URL search Explanation

value
http://example.com/ empty No <query> (page 30) component in input URL.
string
http://example.com/? ? There is a <query> (page 30) component, but it is empty. The question
mark in the resulting value is the prefix.
http://example.com/ ?test The <query> (page 30) component has the value "test".
?test
http://example.com/ ?test The (empty) <fragment> (page 31) component is not part of the <query>
?test# (page 30) component.
2.4 Common microsyntaxes
There are various places in HTML that accept particular data types, such as dates or numbers.
This section describes what the conformance criteria for content in those formats is, and how to
parse them.
Need to go through the whole spec and make sure all the attribute values are clearly defined
either in terms of microsyntaxes or in terms of other specs, or as "Text" or some such.
2.4.1 Common parser idioms
The space characters, for the purposes of this specification, are U+0020 SPACE, U+0009
CHARACTER TABULATION (tab), U+000A LINE FEED (LF), U+000C FORM FEED (FF), and U+000D
CARRIAGE RETURN (CR).
Some of the micro-parsers described below follow the pattern of having an input variable that
holds the string being parsed, and having a position variable pointing at the next character to
parse in input.
For parsers based on this pattern, a step that requires the user agent to collect a sequence of
characters means that the following algorithm must be run, with characters being the set of
characters that can be collected:
1. Let input and position be the same variables as those of the same name in the algorithm
that invoked these steps.
2. Let result be the empty string.
3. While position doesn't point past the end of input and the character at position is one of
the characters, append that character to the end of result and advance position to the
next character in input.
4. Return result.
36
The step skip whitespace means that the user agent must collect a sequence of characters
(page 36) that are space characters (page 36). The step skip Zs characters means that the
user agent must collect a sequence of characters (page 36) that are in the Unicode character
class Zs. In both cases, the collected characters are not used. [UNICODE]
2.4.2 Boolean attributes
A number of attributes in HTML5 are boolean attributes. The presence of a boolean attribute
on an element represents the true value, and the absence of the attribute represents the false
value.
If the attribute is present, its value must either be the empty string or a value that is a
case-insensitive match for the attribute's canonical name, with no leading or trailing whitespace.
2.4.3 Numbers
2.4.3.1. Unsigned integers
A string is a valid non-negative integer if it consists of one of more characters in the range
U+0030 DIGIT ZERO (0) to U+0039 DIGIT NINE (9).
The rules for parsing non-negative integers are as given in the following algorithm. When
invoked, the steps must be followed in the order given, aborting at the first step that returns a
value. This algorithm will either return zero, a positive integer, or an error. Leading spaces are
ignored. Trailing spaces and indeed any trailing garbage characters are ignored.
1. Let input be the string being parsed.
2. Let position be a pointer into input, initially pointing at the start of the string.
3. Let value have the value 0.
4. Skip whitespace. (page 37)
5. If position is past the end of input, return an error.
6. If the next character is not one of U+0030 DIGIT ZERO (0) .. U+0039 DIGIT NINE (9),
then return an error.
7. If the next character is one of U+0030 DIGIT ZERO (0) .. U+0039 DIGIT NINE (9):
1. Multiply value by ten.
2. Add the value of the current character (0..9) to value.
3. Advance position to the next character.
4. If position is not past the end of input, return to the top of step 7 in the overall
algorithm (that's the step within which these substeps find themselves).
37
8. Return value.
2.4.3.2. Signed integers
A string is a valid integer if it consists of one of more characters in the range U+0030 DIGIT
ZERO (0) to U+0039 DIGIT NINE (9), optionally prefixed with a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS ("-")
character.
The rules for parsing integers are similar to the rules for non-negative integers, and are as
given in the following algorithm. When invoked, the steps must be followed in the order given,
aborting at the first step that returns a value. This algorithm will either return an integer or an
error. Leading spaces are ignored. Trailing spaces and trailing garbage characters are ignored.
4. Let sign have the value "positive".
7. If the character indicated by position (the first character) is a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS

("-") character:
1. Let sign be "negative".
8. If the next character is not one of U+0030 DIGIT ZERO (0) .. U+0039 DIGIT NINE (9),
then return an error.
4. If position is not past the end of input, return to the top of step 9 in the overall
algorithm (that's the step within which these substeps find themselves).
10. If sign is "positive", return value, otherwise return 0-value.
38
2.4.3.3. Real numbers
A string is a valid floating point number if it consists of one of more characters in the range
U+0030 DIGIT ZERO (0) to U+0039 DIGIT NINE (9), optionally with a single U+002E FULL STOP
(".") character somewhere (either before these numbers, in between two numbers, or after the
numbers), all optionally prefixed with a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS ("-") character.
The rules for parsing floating point number values are as given in the following algorithm.
As with the previous algorithms, when this one is invoked, the steps must be followed in the
order given, aborting at the first step that returns a value. This algorithm will either return a
number or an error. Leading spaces are ignored. Trailing spaces and garbage characters are
ignored.
4. Let sign have the value "positive".
7. If the character indicated by position (the first character) is a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS

("-") character:
1. Let sign be "negative".
8. If the next character is not one of U+0030 DIGIT ZERO (0) .. U+0039 DIGIT NINE (9) or
U+002E FULL STOP ("."), then return an error.
9. If the next character is U+002E FULL STOP ("."), but either that is the last character or
the character after that one is not one of U+0030 DIGIT ZERO (0) .. U+0039 DIGIT NINE
(9), then return an error.
4. If position is past the end of input, then if sign is "positive", return value,
otherwise return 0-value.
39
5. Otherwise return to the top of step 10 in the overall algorithm (that's the step
within which these substeps find themselves).
11. Otherwise, if the next character is not a U+002E FULL STOP ("."), then if sign is
"positive", return value, otherwise return 0-value.
12. The next character is a U+002E FULL STOP ("."). Advance position to the character after
that.
13. Let divisor be 1.
1. Multiply divisor by ten.
2. Add the value of the current character (0..9) divided by divisor, to value.
4. If position is past the end of input, then if sign is "positive", return value,
otherwise return 0-value.
5. Otherwise return to the top of step 14 in the overall algorithm (that's the step
within which these substeps find themselves).
15. Otherwise, if sign is "positive", return value, otherwise return 0-value.
2.4.3.4. Ratios
Note: The algorithms described in this section are used by the progress and
meter elements.
A valid denominator punctuation character is one of the characters from the table below.
There is a value associated with each denominator punctuation character, as shown in
the table below.
Denominator Punctuation Character Value

U+0025 PERCENT SIGN % 100
U+066A ARABIC PERCENT SIGN ٪ 100
U+FE6A SMALL PERCENT SIGN ? 100
U+FF05 FULLWIDTH PERCENT SIGN ? 100
U+2030 PER MILLE SIGN ‰ 1000
U+2031 PER TEN THOUSAND SIGN ‱ 10000
The steps for finding one or two numbers of a ratio in a string are as follows:
1. If the string is empty, then return nothing and abort these steps.
40
2. Find a number (page 41) in the string according to the algorithm below, starting at the
start of the string.
3. If the sub-algorithm in step 2 returned nothing or returned an error condition, return

nothing and abort these steps.
4. Set number1 to the number returned by the sub-algorithm in step 2.
5. Starting with the character immediately after the last one examined by the
sub-algorithm in step 2, skip any characters in the string that are in the Unicode
character class Zs (this might match zero characters). [UNICODE]
6. If there are still further characters in the string, and the next character in the string is a
valid denominator punctuation character (page 40), set denominator to that character.
7. If the string contains any other characters in the range U+0030 DIGIT ZERO to U+0039
DIGIT NINE, but denominator was given a value in the step 6, return nothing and abort
these steps.
8. Otherwise, if denominator was given a value in step 6, return number1 and denominator
and abort these steps.
9. Find a number (page 41) in the string again, starting immediately after the last
character that was examined by the sub-algorithm in step 2.
10. If the sub-algorithm in step 9 returned nothing or an error condition, return nothing and
abort these steps.
11. Set number2 to the number returned by the sub-algorithm in step 9.
12. If there are still further characters in the string, and the next character in the string is a
valid denominator punctuation character (page 40), return nothing and abort these
steps.
13. If the string contains any other characters in the range U+0030 DIGIT ZERO to U+0039
DIGIT NINE, return nothing and abort these steps.
14. Otherwise, return number1 and number2.
The algorithm to find a number is as follows. It is given a string and a starting position, and
returns either nothing, a number, or an error condition.
1. Starting at the given starting position, ignore all characters in the given string until the
first character that is either a U+002E FULL STOP or one of the ten characters in the
range U+0030 DIGIT ZERO to U+0039 DIGIT NINE.
2. If there are no such characters, return nothing and abort these steps.
3. Starting with the character matched in step 1, collect all the consecutive characters that
are either a U+002E FULL STOP or one of the ten characters in the range U+0030 DIGIT
ZERO to U+0039 DIGIT NINE, and assign this string of one or more characters to string.
41
4. If string contains more than one U+002E FULL STOP character then return an error
condition and abort these steps.
5. Parse string according to the rules for parsing floating point number values (page 39), to
obtain number. This step cannot fail (string is guaranteed to be a valid floating point
number (page 39)).
6. Return number.
2.4.3.5. Percentages and dimensions
valid positive non-zero integers rules for parsing dimension values (only used by
height/width on img, embed, object — lengths in css pixels or percentages)
2.4.3.6. Lists of integers
A valid list of integers is a number of valid integers (page 38) separated by U+002C COMMA
characters, with no other characters (e.g. no space characters (page 36)). In addition, there
might be restrictions on the number of integers that can be given, or on the range of values
allowed.
The rules for parsing a list of integers are as follows:
3. Let numbers be an initially empty list of integers. This list will be the result of this
algorithm.
4. If there is a character in the string input at position position, and it is either a U+0020
SPACE, U+002C COMMA, or U+003B SEMICOLON character, then advance position to
the next character in input, or to beyond the end of the string if there are no more
characters.
5. If position points to beyond the end of input, return numbers and abort.
6. If the character in the string input at position position is a U+0020 SPACE, U+002C
COMMA, or U+003B SEMICOLON character, then return to step 4.
7. Let negated be false.
8. Let value be 0.
9. Let started be false. This variable is set to true when the parser sees a number or a "-"
character.
10. Let got number be false. This variable is set to true when the parser sees a number.
42
11. Let finished be false. This variable is set to true to switch parser into a mode where it
ignores characters until the next separator.
12. Let bogus be false.
13. Parser: If the character in the string input at position position is:
↪ A U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS character

Follow these substeps:
1. If got number is true, let finished be true.
2. If finished is true, skip to the next step in the overall set of steps.
3. If started is true, let negated be false.
4. Otherwise, if started is false and if bogus is false, let negated be true.
5. Let started be true.
↪ A character in the range U+0030 DIGIT ZERO .. U+0039 DIGIT NINE

3. Add the value of the digit, interpreted in base ten, to value.
4. Let started be true.
5. Let got number be true.
↪ A U+0020 SPACE character
↪ A U+002C COMMA character
↪ A U+003B SEMICOLON character

1. If got number is false, return the numbers list and abort. This happens if
an entry in the list has no digits, as in "1,2,x,4".
2. If negated is true, then negate value.
3. Append value to the numbers list.
4. Jump to step 4 in the overall set of steps.
↪ A U+002E FULL STOP character

1. If got number is true, let finished be true.
43
↪ Any other character

3. Let bogus be true.
4. If started is true, then return the numbers list, and abort. (The value in
value is not appended to the list first; it is dropped.)
14. Advance position to the next character in input, or to beyond the end of the string if
there are no more characters.
15. If position points to a character (and not to beyond the end of input), jump to the big
Parser step above.
16. If negated is true, then negate value.
17. If got number is true, then append value to the numbers list.
18. Return the numbers list and abort.
2.4.4 Dates and times
In the algorithms below, the number of days in month month of year year is: 31 if month is
1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, or 12; 30 if month is 4, 6, 9, or 11; 29 if month is 2 and year is a number
divisible by 400, or if year is a number divisible by 4 but not by 100; and 28 otherwise. This
takes into account leap years in the Gregorian calendar. [GREGORIAN]
2.4.4.1. Specific moments in time
A string is a valid datetime if it has four digits (representing the year), a literal hyphen, two
digits (representing the month), a literal hyphen, two digits (representing the day), optionally
some spaces, either a literal T or a space, optionally some more spaces, two digits (for the hour),
a colon, two digits (the minutes), optionally the seconds (which, if included, must consist of
another colon, two digits (the integer part of the seconds), and optionally a decimal point
followed by one or more digits (for the fractional part of the seconds)), optionally some spaces,
and finally either a literal Z (indicating the time zone is UTC), or, a plus sign or a minus sign
followed by two digits, a colon, and two digits (for the sign, the hours and minutes of the
timezone offset respectively); with the month-day combination being a valid date in the given
year according to the Gregorian calendar, the hour values (h) being in the range 0 ≤ h ≤ 23, the
minute values (m) in the range 0 ≤ m ≤ 59, and the second value (s) being in the range
0 ≤ h < 60. [GREGORIAN]
44
The digits must be characters in the range U+0030 DIGIT ZERO (0) to U+0039 DIGIT NINE (9),
the hyphens must be a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS characters, the T must be a U+0054 LATIN
CAPITAL LETTER T, the colons must be U+003A COLON characters, the decimal point must be a
U+002E FULL STOP, the Z must be a U+005A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z, the plus sign must be a
U+002B PLUS SIGN, and the minus U+002D (same as the hyphen).
The following are some examples of dates written as valid datetimes (page 44).
"0037-12-13 00:00 Z"

Midnight UTC on the birthday of Nero (the Roman Emperor).
"1979-10-14T12:00:00.001-04:00"
One millisecond after noon on October 14th 1979, in the time zone in use on the east
coast of North America during daylight saving time.
"8592-01-01 T 02:09 +02:09"

Midnight UTC on the 1st of January, 8592. The time zone associated with that time is
two hours and nine minutes ahead of UTC.
Several things are notable about these dates:
• Years with fewer than four digits have to be zero-padded. The date "37-12-13"
would not be a valid date.
• To unambiguously identify a moment in time prior to the introduction of the

Gregorian calendar, the date has to be first converted to the Gregorian calendar
from the calendar in use at the time (e.g. from the Julian calendar). The date of
Nero's birth is the 15th of December 37, in the Julian Calendar, which is the 13th of
December 37 in the Gregorian Calendar.
• The time and timezone components are not optional.
• Dates before the year 0 or after the year 9999 can't be represented as a datetime in
this version of HTML.
• Time zones differ based on daylight savings time.
Note: Conformance checkers can use the algorithm below to determine if a

datetime is a valid datetime or not.
To parse a string as a datetime value, a user agent must apply the following algorithm to
the string. This will either return a time in UTC, with associated timezone information for round
tripping or display purposes, or nothing, indicating the value is not a valid datetime (page 44). If
at any point the algorithm says that it "fails", this means that it returns nothing.
3. Collect a sequence of characters (page 36) in the range U+0030 DIGIT ZERO (0) to
U+0039 DIGIT NINE (9). If the collected sequence is not exactly four characters long,
45
then fail. Otherwise, interpret the resulting sequence as a base-ten integer. Let that
number be the year.
4. If position is beyond the end of input or if the character at position is not a U+002D
HYPHEN-MINUS character, then fail. Otherwise, move position forwards one character.
U+0039 DIGIT NINE (9). If the collected sequence is not exactly two characters long,
number be the month.
6. If month is not a number in the range 1 ≤ month ≤ 12, then fail.
7. Let maxday be the number of days in month month of year year (page 44).
8. If position is beyond the end of input or if the character at position is not a U+002D
HYPHEN-MINUS character, then fail. Otherwise, move position forwards one character.
number be the day.
10. If day is not a number in the range 1 ≤ month ≤ maxday, then fail.
11. Collect a sequence of characters (page 36) that are either U+0054 LATIN CAPITAL
LETTER T characters or space characters (page 36). If the collected sequence is zero
characters long, or if it contains more than one U+0054 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T
character, then fail.
number be the hour.
13. If hour is not a number in the range 0 ≤ hour ≤ 23, then fail.
14. If position is beyond the end of input or if the character at position is not a U+003A
COLON character, then fail. Otherwise, move position forwards one character.
number be the minute.
16. If minute is not a number in the range 0 ≤ minute ≤ 59, then fail.
17. Let second be a string with the value "0".
18. If position is beyond the end of input, then fail.
19. If the character at position is a U+003A COLON, then:
46
1. Advance position to the next character in input.
2. If position is beyond the end of input, or at the last character in input, or if the
next two characters in input starting at position are not two characters both in
the range U+0030 DIGIT ZERO (0) to U+0039 DIGIT NINE (9), then fail.
3. Collect a sequence of characters (page 36) that are either characters in the
range U+0030 DIGIT ZERO (0) to U+0039 DIGIT NINE (9) or U+002E FULL STOP
characters. If the collected sequence has more than one U+002E FULL STOP
characters, or if the last character in the sequence is a U+002E FULL STOP
character, then fail. Otherwise, let the collected string be second instead of its
previous value.
20. Interpret second as a base-ten number (possibly with a fractional part). Let that number
be second instead of the string version.
21. If second is not a number in the range 0 ≤ hour < 60, then fail. (The values 60 and 61
are not allowed: leap seconds cannot be represented by datetime values.)
22. If position is beyond the end of input, then fail.
24. If the character at position is a U+005A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z, then:
1. Let timezonehours be 0.
2. Let timezoneminutes be 0.
25. Otherwise, if the character at position is either a U+002B PLUS SIGN ("+") or a U+002D
HYPHEN-MINUS ("-"), then:
1. If the character at position is a U+002B PLUS SIGN ("+"), let sign be "positive".
Otherwise, it's a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS ("-"); let sign be "negative".
3. Collect a sequence of characters (page 36) in the range U+0030 DIGIT ZERO (0)
to U+0039 DIGIT NINE (9). If the collected sequence is not exactly two
characters long, then fail. Otherwise, interpret the resulting sequence as a
base-ten integer. Let that number be the timezonehours.
4. If timezonehours is not a number in the range 0 ≤ timezonehours ≤ 23, then fail.
5. If sign is "negative", then negate timezonehours.
6. If position is beyond the end of input or if the character at position is not a

U+003A COLON character, then fail. Otherwise, move position forwards one
character.
47
to U+0039 DIGIT NINE (9). If the collected sequence is not exactly two
characters long, then fail. Otherwise, interpret the resulting sequence as a
base-ten integer. Let that number be the timezoneminutes.
8. If timezoneminutes is not a number in the range 0 ≤ timezoneminutes ≤ 59, then

fail.
9. If sign is "negative", then negate timezoneminutes.
26. If position is not beyond the end of input, then fail.
27. Let time be the moment in time at year year, month month, day day, hours hour, minute
minute, second second, subtracting timezonehours hours and timezoneminutes minutes.
That moment in time is a moment in the UTC timezone.
28. Let timezone be timezonehours hours and timezoneminutes minutes from UTC.
29. Return time and timezone.
2.4.4.2. Vaguer moments in time
This section defines date or time strings. There are two kinds, date or time strings in
content, and date or time strings in attributes. The only difference is in the handling of
whitespace characters.
To parse a date or time string (page 48), user agents must use the following algorithm. A date or
time string (page 48) is a valid date or time string if the following algorithm, when run on the
string, doesn't say the string is invalid.
The algorithm may return nothing (in which case the string will be invalid), or it may return a
date, a time, a date and a time, or a date and a time and a timezone. Even if the algorithm
returns one or more values, the string can still be invalid.
3. Let results be the collection of results that are to be returned (one or more of a date, a
time, and a timezone), initially empty. If the algorithm aborts at any point, then
whatever is currently in results must be returned as the result of the algorithm.
4. For the "in content" variant: skip Zs characters (page 37); for the "in attributes" variant:
skip whitespace (page 37).
U+0039 DIGIT NINE (9). If the collected sequence is empty, then the string is invalid;
abort these steps.
6. Let the sequence of characters collected in the last step be s.
48
7. If position is past the end of input, the string is invalid; abort these steps.
8. If the character at position is not a U+003A COLON character, then:
1. If the character at position is not a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS ("-") character

either, then the string is invalid, abort these steps.
2. If the sequence s is not exactly four digits long, then the string is invalid. (This
does not stop the algorithm, however.)
3. Interpret the sequence of characters collected in step 5 as a base-ten integer,

and let that number be year.
4. Advance position past the U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS ("-") character.
to U+0039 DIGIT NINE (9). If the collected sequence is empty, then the string is
invalid; abort these steps.
6. If the sequence collected in the last step is not exactly two digits long, then the
string is invalid.
7. Interpret the sequence of characters collected two steps ago as a base-ten

integer, and let that number be month.
8. If month is not a number in the range 1 ≤ month ≤ 12, then the string is invalid,
abort these steps.
9. Let maxday be the number of days in month month of year year (page 44).
10. If position is past the end of input, or if the character at position is not a U+002D
HYPHEN-MINUS ("-") character, then the string is invalid, abort these steps.
Otherwise, advance position to the next character.
12. If the sequence collected in the last step is not exactly two digits long, then the
string is invalid.
integer, and let that number be day.
14. If day is not a number in the range 1 ≤ day ≤ maxday, then the string is invalid,
abort these steps.
15. Add the date represented by year, month, and day to the results.
16. For the "in content" variant: skip Zs characters (page 37); for the "in attributes"
variant: skip whitespace (page 37).
49
17. If the character at position is a U+0054 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T, then move
position forwards one character.
20. Let s be the sequence of characters collected in the last step.
9. If s is not exactly two digits long, then the string is invalid.
10. Interpret the sequence of characters collected two steps ago as a base-ten integer, and
let that number be hour.
11. If hour is not a number in the range 0 ≤ hour ≤ 23, then the string is invalid, abort these
steps.
12. If position is past the end of input, or if the character at position is not a U+003A COLON
character, then the string is invalid, abort these steps. Otherwise, advance position to
the next character.
U+0039 DIGIT NINE (9). If the collected sequence is empty, then the string is invalid;
abort these steps.
14. If the sequence collected in the last step is not exactly two digits long, then the string is
invalid.
15. Interpret the sequence of characters collected two steps ago as a base-ten integer, and
let that number be minute.
16. If minute is not a number in the range 0 ≤ minute ≤ 59, then the string is invalid, abort
these steps.
17. Let second be 0. It might be changed to another value in the next step.
18. If position is not past the end of input and the character at position is a U+003A COLON
character, then:
1. Collect a sequence of characters (page 36) that are either characters in the
range U+0030 DIGIT ZERO (0) to U+0039 DIGIT NINE (9) or are U+002E FULL
STOP. If the collected sequence is empty, or contains more than one U+002E
FULL STOP character, then the string is invalid; abort these steps.
2. If the first character in the sequence collected in the last step is not in the range
U+0030 DIGIT ZERO (0) to U+0039 DIGIT NINE (9), then the string is invalid.

number (possibly with a fractional part), and let that number be second.
50
4. If second is not a number in the range 0 ≤ minute < 60, then the string is
invalid, abort these steps.
19. Add the time represented by hour, minute, and second to the results.
20. If results has both a date and a time, then:
2. If position is past the end of input, then skip to the next step in the overall set of
steps.
3. Otherwise, if the character at position is a U+005A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z,

then:
1. Add the timezone corresponding to UTC (zero offset) to the results.
3. Skip to the next step in the overall set of steps.
4. Otherwise, if the character at position is either a U+002B PLUS SIGN ("+") or a

U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS ("-"), then:
1. If the character at position is a U+002B PLUS SIGN ("+"), let sign be

"positive". Otherwise, it's a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS ("-"); let sign be
"negative".
3. Collect a sequence of characters (page 36) in the range U+0030 DIGIT

ZERO (0) to U+0039 DIGIT NINE (9). If the collected sequence is not
exactly two characters long, then the string is invalid.
4. Interpret the sequence collected in the last step as a base-ten number,

and let that number be timezonehours.
5. If timezonehours is not a number in the range 0 ≤ timezonehours ≤ 23,

then the string is invalid; abort these steps.
6. If sign is "negative", then negate timezonehours.
7. If position is beyond the end of input or if the character at position is not

a U+003A COLON character, then the string is invalid; abort these steps.
Otherwise, move position forwards one character.
8. Collect a sequence of characters (page 36) in the range U+0030 DIGIT

ZERO (0) to U+0039 DIGIT NINE (9). If the collected sequence is not
exactly two characters long, then the string is invalid.
51
9. Interpret the sequence collected in the last step as a base-ten number,
and let that number be timezoneminutes.
10. If timezoneminutes is not a number in the range

0 ≤ timezoneminutes ≤ 59, then the string is invalid; abort these steps.
11. Add the timezone corresponding to an offset of timezonehours hours and

timezoneminutes minutes to the results.
12. Skip to the next step in the overall set of steps.
5. Otherwise, the string is invalid; abort these steps.
21. For the "in content" variant: skip Zs characters (page 37); for the "in attributes" variant:
skip whitespace (page 37).
22. If position is not past the end of input, then the string is invalid.
23. Abort these steps (the string is parsed).
2.4.5 Time offsets
valid time offset, rules for parsing time offsets, time offset serialization rules; in the
format "5d4h3m2s1ms" or "3m 9.2s" or "00:00:00.00" or similar.
2.4.6 Tokens
A set of space-separated tokens is a set of zero or more words separated by one or more
space characters (page 36), where words consist of any string of one or more characters, none
of which are space characters (page 36).
A string containing a set of space-separated tokens (page 52) may have leading or trailing space
characters (page 36).
An unordered set of unique space-separated tokens is a set of space-separated tokens

(page 52) where none of the words are duplicated.
An ordered set of unique space-separated tokens is a set of space-separated tokens (page

52) where none of the words are duplicated but where the order of the tokens is meaningful.
Sets of space-separated tokens (page 52) sometimes have a defined set of allowed values.
When a set of allowed values is defined, the tokens must all be from that list of allowed values;
other values are non-conforming. If no such set of allowed values is provided, then all values are
conforming.
When a user agent has to split a string on spaces, it must use the following algorithm:
52
3. Let tokens be a list of tokens, initially empty.
4. Skip whitespace (page 37)
5. While position is not past the end of input:
1. Collect a sequence of characters (page 36) that are not space characters (page
36).
2. Add the string collected in the previous step to tokens.
3. Skip whitespace (page 37)
6. Return tokens.
When a user agent has to remove a token from a string, it must use the following algorithm:
1. Let input be the string being modified.
2. Let token be the token being removed. It will not contain any space characters (page
36).
3. Let output be the output string, initially empty.
5. If position is beyond the end of input, set the string being modified to output, and abort
these steps.
6. If the character at position is a space character (page 36):
1. Append the character at position to the end of output.
2. Increment position so it points at the next character in input.
3. Return to step 5 in the overall set of steps.
7. Otherwise, the character at position is the first character of a token. Collect a sequence
of characters (page 36) that are not space characters (page 36), and let that be s.
8. If s is exactly equal to token, then:
1. Skip whitespace (page 37) (in input).
2. Remove any space characters (page 36) currently at the end of output.
3. If position is not past the end of input, and output is not the empty string,
append a single U+0020 SPACE character at the end of output.
9. Otherwise, append s to the end of output.
10. Return to step 6 in the overall set of steps.
53
Note: This causes any occurrences of the token to be removed from the string,
and any spaces that were surrounding the token to be collapsed to a single
space, except at the start and end of the string, where such spaces are
removed.
2.4.7 Keywords and enumerated attributes
Some attributes are defined as taking one of a finite set of keywords. Such attributes are called
enumerated attributes. The keywords are each defined to map to a particular state (several
keywords might map to the same state, in which case some of the keywords are synonyms of
each other; additionally, some of the keywords can be said to be non-conforming, and are only
in the specification for historical reasons). In addition, two default states can be given. The first
is the invalid value default, the second is the missing value default.
If an enumerated attribute is specified, the attribute's value must be one of the given keywords
that are not said to be non-conforming, with no leading or trailing whitespace. The keyword may
use any mix of uppercase and lowercase letters.
When the attribute is specified, if its value case-insensitively matches one of the given keywords
then that keyword's state is the state that the attribute represents. If the attribute value
matches none of the given keywords, but the attribute has an invalid value default, then the
attribute represents that state. Otherwise, if the attribute value matches none of the keywords
but there is a missing value default state defined, then that is the state represented by the
attribute. Otherwise, there is no default, and invalid values must be ignored.
When the attribute is not specified, if there is a missing value default state defined, then that is
the state represented by the (missing) attribute. Otherwise, the absence of the attribute means
that there is no state represented.
Note: The empty string can be one of the keywords in some cases. For
example the contenteditable attribute has two states: true, matching the true
keyword and the empty string, false, matching false and all other keywords
(it's the invalid value default). It could further be thought of as having a third
state inherit, which would be the default when the attribute is not specified at
all (the missing value default), but for various reasons that isn't the way this
specification actually defines it.
2.4.8 References
A valid hash-name reference to an element of type type is a string consisting of a U+0023

NUMBER SIGN (#) character followed by a string which exactly matches the value of the name
attribute of an element in the document with type type.
The rules for parsing a hash-name reference to an element of type type are as follows:
54
1. If the string being parsed does not contain a U+0023 NUMBER SIGN character, or if the
first such character in the string is the last character in the string, then return null and
abort these steps.
2. Let s be the string from the character immediately after the first U+0023 NUMBER SIGN
character in the string being parsed up to the end of that string.
3. Return the first element of type type that has an id or name attribute whose value
case-insensitively matches s.
2.5 Common DOM interfaces
2.5.1 Reflecting content attributes in DOM attributes
Some DOM attributes are defined to reflect a particular content attribute. This means that on
getting, the DOM attribute returns the current value of the content attribute, and on setting, the
DOM attribute changes the value of the content attribute to the given value.
If a reflecting DOM attribute is a DOMString attribute whose content attribute is defined to

contain a URL (page 29), then on getting, the DOM attribute must resolve (page 31) the value of
the content attribute and return the resulting absolute URL (page 33) if that was successful, or
the empty string otherwise; and on setting, must set the content attribute to the specified literal
value. If the content attribute is absent, the DOM attribute must return the default value, if the
content attribute has one, or else the empty string.
If a reflecting DOM attribute is a DOMString attribute whose content attribute is defined to

contain one or more URLs (page 29), then on getting, the DOM attribute must split the content
attribute on spaces and return the concatenation of resolving (page 31) each token URL to an
absolute URL (page 33), with a single U+0020 SPACE character between each URL, ignoring any
tokens that did not resolve successfully. If the content attribute is absent, the DOM attribute
must return the default value, if the content attribute has one, or else the empty string. On
setting, the DOM attribute must set the content attribute to the specified literal value.
If a reflecting DOM attribute is a DOMString whose content attribute is an enumerated attribute

(page 54), and the DOM attribute is limited to only known values, then, on getting, the DOM
attribute must return the conforming value associated with the state the attribute is in (in its
canonical case), or the empty string if the attribute is in a state that has no associated keyword
value; and on setting, if the new value case-insensitively matches one of the keywords given for
that attribute, then the content attribute must be set to the conforming value associated with
the state that the attribute would be in if set to the given new value, otherwise, if the new value
is the empty string, then the content attribute must be removed, otherwise, the setter must
raise a SYNTAX_ERR exception.
If a reflecting DOM attribute is a DOMString but doesn't fall into any of the above categories,
then the getting and setting must be done in a transparent, case-preserving manner.
If a reflecting DOM attribute is a boolean attribute, then on getting the DOM attribute must
return true if the attribute is set, and false if it is absent. On setting, the content attribute must
55
be removed if the DOM attribute is set to false, and must be set to have the same value as its
name if the DOM attribute is set to true. (This corresponds to the rules for boolean content
attributes (page 37).)
If a reflecting DOM attribute is a signed integer type (long) then, on getting, the content
attribute must be parsed according to the rules for parsing signed integers (page 38), and if that
is successful, the resulting value must be returned. If, on the other hand, it fails, or if the
attribute is absent, then the default value must be returned instead, or 0 if there is no default
value. On setting, the given value must be converted to the shortest possible string representing
the number as a valid integer (page 38) in base ten and then that string must be used as the
new content attribute value.
If a reflecting DOM attribute is an unsigned integer type (unsigned long) then, on getting, the
content attribute must be parsed according to the rules for parsing unsigned integers (page 37),
and if that is successful, the resulting value must be returned. If, on the other hand, it fails, or if
the attribute is absent, the default value must be returned instead, or 0 if there is no default
value. On setting, the given value must be converted to the shortest possible string representing
the number as a valid non-negative integer (page 37) in base ten and then that string must be
used as the new content attribute value.
If a reflecting DOM attribute is an unsigned integer type (unsigned long) that is limited to
only positive non-zero numbers, then the behavior is similar to the previous case, but zero is
not allowed. On getting, the content attribute must first be parsed according to the rules for
parsing unsigned integers (page 37), and if that is successful, the resulting value must be
returned. If, on the other hand, it fails, or if the attribute is absent, the default value must be
returned instead, or 1 if there is no default value. On setting, if the value is zero, the user agent
must fire an INDEX_SIZE_ERR exception. Otherwise, the given value must be converted to the
shortest possible string representing the number as a valid non-negative integer (page 37) in
base ten and then that string must be used as the new content attribute value.
If a reflecting DOM attribute is a floating point number type (float) and the content attribute is
defined to contain a time offset, then, on getting, the content attribute must be parsed
according to the rules for parsing time offsets (page 52), and if that is successful, the resulting
value, in seconds, must be returned. If that fails, or if the attribute is absent, the default value
must be returned, or the not-a-number value (NaN) if there is no default value. On setting, the
given value, interpreted as a time offset in seconds, must be converted to a string using the
time offset serialization rules (page 52), and that string must be used as the new content
attribute value.
If a reflecting DOM attribute is a floating point number type (float) and it doesn't fall into one of
the earlier categories, then, on getting, the content attribute must be parsed according to the
rules for parsing floating point number values (page 39), and if that is successful, the resulting
value must be returned. If, on the other hand, it fails, or if the attribute is absent, the default
value must be returned instead, or 0.0 if there is no default value. On setting, the given value
must be converted to the shortest possible string representing the number as a valid floating
point number (page 39) in base ten and then that string must be used as the new content
attribute value.
56
If a reflecting DOM attribute is of the type DOMTokenList, then on getting it must return a
DOMTokenList object whose underlying string is the element's corresponding content attribute.
When the DOMTokenList object mutates its underlying string, the content attribute must itself be
immediately mutated. When the attribute is absent, then the string represented by the
DOMTokenList object is the empty string; when the object mutates this empty string, the user
agent must first add the corresponding content attribute, and then mutate that attribute
instead. DOMTokenList attributes are always read-only. The same DOMTokenList object must be
returned every time for each attribute.
If a reflecting DOM attribute has the type HTMLElement, or an interface that descends from
HTMLElement, then, on getting, it must run the following algorithm (stopping at the first point
where a value is returned):
1. If the corresponding content attribute is absent, then the DOM attribute must return null.
2. Let candidate be the element that the document.getElementById() method would find
if it was passed as its argument the current value of the corresponding content attribute.
3. If candidate is null, or if it is not type-compatible with the DOM attribute, then the DOM
attribute must return null.
4. Otherwise, it must return candidate.
On setting, if the given element has an id attribute, then the content attribute must be set to
the value of that id attribute. Otherwise, the DOM attribute must be set to the empty string.
2.5.2 Collections
The HTMLCollection, HTMLFormControlsCollection, and HTMLOptionsCollection interfaces

represent various lists of DOM nodes. Collectively, objects implementing these interfaces are
called collections.
When a collection (page 57) is created, a filter and a root are associated with the collection.
For example, when the HTMLCollection object for the document.images attribute is
created, it is associated with a filter that selects only img elements, and rooted at the root of
the document.
The collection (page 57) then represents a live (page 28) view of the subtree rooted at the
collection's root, containing only nodes that match the given filter. The view is linear. In the
absence of specific requirements to the contrary, the nodes within the collection must be sorted
in tree order (page 28).
Note: The rows list is not in tree order.
An attribute that returns a collection must return the same object every time it is retrieved.
57
2.5.2.1. HTMLCollection
The HTMLCollection interface represents a generic collection (page 57) of elements.
interface HTMLCollection {
readonly attribute unsigned long length;
[IndexGetter] Element item(in unsigned long index);
[NameGetter] Element namedItem(in DOMString name);
};
The length attribute must return the number of nodes represented by the collection (page 57).
The item(index) method must return the indexth node in the collection. If there is no indexth
node in the collection, then the method must return null.
The namedItem(key) method must return the first node in the collection that matches the
following requirements:
• It is an a, applet, area, form, img, or object element with a name attribute equal to key,
or,
• It is an HTML element (page 27) of any kind with an id attribute equal to key. (Non-HTML
elements, even if they have IDs, are not searched for the purposes of namedItem().)
If no such elements are found, then the method must return null.
2.5.2.2. HTMLFormControlsCollection
The HTMLFormControlsCollection interface represents a collection (page 57) of form controls.
interface HTMLFormControlsCollection {
[IndexGetter] HTMLElement item(in unsigned long index);
[NameGetter] Object namedItem(in DOMString name);
};
The length attribute must return the number of nodes represented by the collection (page 57).
The namedItem(key) method must act according to the following algorithm:
1. If, at the time the method is called, there is exactly one node in the collection that has
either an id attribute or a name attribute equal to key, then return that node and stop
the algorithm.
2. Otherwise, if there are no nodes in the collection that have either an id attribute or a
name attribute equal to key, then return null and stop the algorithm.
58
3. Otherwise, create a NodeList object representing a live view of the
HTMLFormControlsCollection object, further filtered so that the only nodes in the
NodeList object are those that have either an id attribute or a name attribute equal to
key. The nodes in the NodeList object must be sorted in tree order (page 28).
4. Return that NodeList object.
2.5.2.3. HTMLOptionsCollection
The HTMLOptionsCollection interface represents a list of option elements.
interface HTMLOptionsCollection {
attribute unsigned long length;
[IndexGetter] HTMLOptionElement item(in unsigned long index);
[NameGetter] Object namedItem(in DOMString name);
};
On getting, the length attribute must return the number of nodes represented by the collection
(page 57).
On setting, the behavior depends on whether the new value is equal to, greater than, or less
than the number of nodes represented by the collection (page 57) at that time. If the number is
the same, then setting the attribute must do nothing. If the new value is greater, then n new
option elements with no attributes and no child nodes must be appended to the select
element on which the HTMLOptionsCollection is rooted, where n is the difference between the
two numbers (new value minus old value). If the new value is lower, then the last n nodes in the
collection must be removed from their parent nodes, where n is the difference between the two
numbers (old value minus new value).
Note: Setting length never removes or adds any optgroup elements, and never
adds new children to existing optgroup elements (though it can remove
children from them).
The namedItem(key) method must act according to the following algorithm:
1. If, at the time the method is called, there is exactly one node in the collection that has
either an id attribute or a name attribute equal to key, then return that node and stop
the algorithm.
2. Otherwise, if there are no nodes in the collection that have either an id attribute or a
name attribute equal to key, then return null and stop the algorithm.
3. Otherwise, create a NodeList object representing a live view of the

HTMLOptionsCollection object, further filtered so that the only nodes in the NodeList
59
object are those that have either an id attribute or a name attribute equal to key. The
nodes in the NodeList object must be sorted in tree order (page 28).
4. Return that NodeList object.
We may want to add add() and remove() methods here too because IE implements
HTMLSelectElement and HTMLOptionsCollection on the same object, and so people use them
almost interchangeably in the wild.
2.5.3 DOMTokenList
The DOMTokenList interface represents an interface to an underlying string that consists of an

unordered set of unique space-separated tokens (page 52).
Which string underlies a particular DOMTokenList object is defined when the object is created. It
might be a content attribute (e.g. the string that underlies the classList object is the class
attribute), or it might be an anonymous string (e.g. when a DOMTokenList object is passed to an
author-implemented callback in the datagrid APIs).
[Stringifies] interface DOMTokenList {

[IndexGetter] DOMString item(in unsigned long index);
boolean has(in DOMString token);
void add(in DOMString token);
void remove(in DOMString token);
boolean toggle(in DOMString token);
};
The length attribute must return the number of unique tokens that result from splitting the
underlying string on spaces (page 52).
The item(index) method must split the underlying string on spaces (page 52), sort the resulting
list of tokens by Unicode codepoint, remove exact duplicates, and then return the indexth item
in this list. If index is equal to or greater than the number of tokens, then the method must
return null.
The has(token) method must run the following algorithm:
1. If the token argument contains any space characters (page 36), then raise an
INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR exception and stop the algorithm.
2. Otherwise, split the underlying string on spaces (page 52) to get the list of tokens in the
object's underlying string.
3. If the token indicated by token is one of the tokens in the object's underlying string then
return true and stop this algorithm.
4. Otherwise, return false.
60
The add(token) method must run the following algorithm:
3. If the given token is already one of the tokens in the DOMTokenList object's underlying
string then stop the algorithm.
4. Otherwise, if the DOMTokenList object's underlying string is not the empty string and the
last character of that string is not a space character (page 36), then append a U+0020
SPACE character to the end of that string.
5. Append the value of token to the end of the DOMTokenList object's underlying string.
The remove(token) method must run the following algorithm:
2. Otherwise, remove the given token from the underlying string (page 53).
The toggle(token) method must run the following algorithm:
3. If the given token is already one of the tokens in the DOMTokenList object's underlying
string then remove the given token from the underlying string (page 53), and stop the
algorithm, returning false.
4. Otherwise, if the DOMTokenList object's underlying string is not the empty string and the
last character of that string is not a space character (page 36), then append a U+0020
SPACE character to the end of that string.
5. Append the value of token to the end of the DOMTokenList object's underlying string.
6. Return true.
Objects implementing the DOMTokenList interface must stringify to the object's underlying
string representation.
61
2.5.4 DOMStringMap
The DOMStringMap interface represents a set of name-value pairs. When a DOMStringMap object
is instanced, it is associated with three algorithms, one for getting values from names, one for
setting names to certain values, and one for deleting names.
The names of the methods on this interface are temporary and will be fixed when the Web IDL
/ "Language Bindings for DOM Specifications" spec is ready to handle this case.
interface DOMStringMap {
[NameGetter] DOMString XXX1(in DOMString name);
[NameSetter] void XXX2(in DOMString name, in DOMString value);
[XXX] boolean XXX3(in DOMString name);
};
The XXX1(name) method must call the algorithm for getting values from names, passing name
as the name, and must return the corresponding value, or null if name has no corresponding
value.
The XXX2(name, value) method must call the algorithm for setting names to certain values,
passing name as the name and value as the value.
The XXX3(name) method must call the algorithm for deleting names, passing name as the name,
and must return true.
2.5.5 DOM feature strings
DOM3 Core defines mechanisms for checking for interface support, and for obtaining
implementations of interfaces, using feature strings. [DOM3CORE]
A DOM application can use the hasFeature(feature, version) method of the

DOMImplementation interface with parameter values "HTML" and "5.0" (respectively) to
determine whether or not this module is supported by the implementation. In addition to the
feature string "HTML", the feature string "XHTML" (with version string "5.0") can be used to check
if the implementation supports XHTML. User agents should respond with a true value when the
hasFeature method is queried with these values. Authors are cautioned, however, that UAs
returning true might not be perfectly compliant, and that UAs returning false might well have
support for features in this specification; in general, therefore, use of this method is
discouraged.
The values "HTML" and "XHTML" (both with version "5.0") should also be supported in the context
of the getFeature() and isSupported() methods, as defined by DOM3 Core.
Note: The interfaces defined in this specification are not always supersets of
the interfaces defined in DOM2 HTML; some features that were formerly
deprecated, poorly supported, rarely used or considered unnecessary have
62
been removed. Therefore it is not guaranteed that an implementation that
supports "HTML" "5.0" also supports "HTML" "2.0".
2.6 Fetching resources
replace all instances of the word 'fetch' or 'download' with a reference to this section, and put
something here that talks about caching, that redirects to the offline storage stuff when
appropriate, that defines that before fetching a URL you have to resolve the URL, so that
every case of fetching doesn't have to independently say to resolve the URL, etc; "once
fetched, a resource might have to have its type determined", pointing to the next section but
also explicitly saying that it's up to the part of the spec doing the fetching to determine how
the type is established
2.7 Determining the type of a resource
⚠Warning! It is imperative that the rules in this section be followed exactly. When a
user agent uses different heuristics for content type detection than the server
expects, security problems can occur. For example, if a server believes that the client
will treat a contributed file as an image (and thus treat it as benign), but a Web
browser believes the content to be HTML (and thus execute any scripts contained
therein), the end user can be exposed to malicious content, making the user
vulnerable to cookie theft attacks and other cross-site scripting attacks.
2.7.1 Content-Type metadata
What explicit Content-Type metadata is associated with the resource (the resource's type
information) depends on the protocol that was used to fetch the resource.
For HTTP resources, only the first Content-Type HTTP header, if any, contributes any type
information; the explicit type of the resource is then the value of that header, interpreted as
described by the HTTP specifications. If the Content-Type HTTP header is present but the value
of the first such header cannot be interpreted as described by the HTTP specifications (e.g.
because its value doesn't contain a U+002F SOLIDUS ('/') character), then the resource has no
type information (even if there are multiple Content-Type HTTP headers and one of the other
ones is syntactically correct). [HTTP]
For resources fetched from the file system, user agents should use platform-specific
conventions, e.g. operating system extension/type mappings.
Extensions must not be used for determining resource types for resources fetched over HTTP.
For resources fetched over most other protocols, e.g. FTP, there is no type information.
63
The algorithm for extracting an encoding from a Content-Type, given a string s, is as
follows. It either returns an encoding or nothing.
1. Find the first seven characters in s that are a case-insensitive match for the word
'charset'. If no such match is found, return nothing.
2. Skip any U+0009, U+000A, U+000C, U+000D, or U+0020 characters that immediately
follow the word 'charset' (there might not be any).
3. If the next character is not a U+003D EQUALS SIGN ('='), return nothing.
4. Skip any U+0009, U+000A, U+000C, U+000D, or U+0020 characters that immediately
follow the equals sign (there might not be any).
5. Process the next character as follows:
↪ If it is a U+0022 QUOTATION MARK ('"') and there is a later U+0022

QUOTATION MARK ('"') in s
↪ If it is a U+0027 APOSTROPHE ("'") and there is a later U+0027

APOSTROPHE ("'") in s
Return the string between this character and the next earliest occurrence of this
character.
↪ If it is an unmatched U+0022 QUOTATION MARK ('"')
↪ If it is an unmatched U+0027 APOSTROPHE ("'")
↪ If there is no next character

Return nothing.
↪ Otherwise
Return the string from this character to the first U+0009, U+000A, U+000C,
U+000D, U+0020, or U+003B character or the end of s, whichever comes first.
Note: The above algorithm is a willful violation of the HTTP specification.

[RFC2616]
2.7.2 Content-Type sniffing: Web pages
The sniffed type of a resource must be found as follows:
1. Let official type be the type given by the Content-Type metadata (page 63) for the
resource (in lowercase, ignoring any parameters). If there is no such type, jump to the
unknown type (page 66) step below.
2. If the user agent is configured to strictly obey Content-Type headers for this resource,
then jump to the last step in this set of steps.
64
3. If the resource was fetched over an HTTP protocol and there is an HTTP Content-Type
header and the value of the first such header has bytes that exactly match one of the
following lines:
Bytes in Hexadecimal Textual representation

74 65 78 74 2f 70 6c 61 69 6e text/plain
74 65 78 74 2f 70 6c 61 69 6e 3b 20 63 68 61 72 73 65 74 3d 49 53 4f 2d text/
38 38 35 39 2d 31 plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
74 65 78 74 2f 70 6c 61 69 6e 3b 20 63 68 61 72 73 65 74 3d 69 73 6f 2d text/
38 38 35 39 2d 31 plain; charset=iso-8859-1
74 65 78 74 2f 70 6c 61 69 6e 3b 20 63 68 61 72 73 65 74 3d 55 54 46 2d text/plain; charset=UTF-8
38
...then jump to the text or binary (page 65) section below.
4. If official type is "unknown/unknown" or "application/unknown", jump to the unknown

type (page 66) step below.
5. If official type ends in "+xml", or if it is either "text/xml" or "application/xml", then the

sniffed type of the resource is official type; return that and abort these steps.
6. If official type is an image type supported by the user agent (e.g. "image/png", "image/
gif", "image/jpeg", etc), then jump to the images (page 68) section below.
7. If official type is "text/html", then jump to the feed or HTML (page 68) section below.
8. The sniffed type of the resource is official type.
2.7.3 Content-Type sniffing: text or binary
1. The user agent may wait for 512 or more bytes of the resource to be available.
2. Let n be the smaller of either 512 or the number of bytes already available.
3. If n is 4 or more, and the first bytes of the file match one of the following byte sets:
Bytes in Hexadecimal Description

FE FF UTF-16BE BOM
FF FE UTF-16LE BOM
EF BB BF UTF-8 BOM
...then the sniffed type of the resource is "text/plain".
4. Otherwise, if any of the first n bytes of the resource are in one of the following byte
ranges:
• 0x00 - 0x08
• 0x0B
• 0x0E - 0x1A
• 0x1C - 0x1F
65
...then the sniffed type of the resource is "application/octet-stream".
maybe we should invoke the "Content-Type sniffing: image" section now, falling back
on "application/octet-stream".
5. Otherwise, the sniffed type of the resource is "text/plain".
2.7.4 Content-Type sniffing: unknown type
2. Let stream length be the smaller of either 512 or the number of bytes already available.
3. For each row in the table below:
↪ If the row has no "WS" bytes:
1. Let pattern length be the length of the pattern (number of bytes

described by the cell in the second column of the row).
2. If pattern length is smaller than stream length then skip this row.
3. Apply the "and" operator to the first pattern length bytes of the resource
and the given mask (the bytes in the cell of first column of that row),
and let the result be the data.
4. If the bytes of the data matches the given pattern bytes exactly, then
the sniffed type of the resource is the type given in the cell of the third
column in that row; abort these steps.
↪ If the row has a "WS" byte:
1. Let indexpattern be an index into the mask and pattern byte strings of
the row.
2. Let indexstream be an index into the byte stream being examined.
3. Loop: If indexstream points beyond the end of the byte stream, then this
row doesn't match, skip this row.
4. Examine the indexstreamth byte of the byte stream as follows:
↪ If the indexstreamth byte of the pattern is a normal

hexadecimal byte and not a "WS" byte:
If the "and" operator, applied to the indexstreamth byte of the
stream and the indexpatternth byte of the mask, yield a value
different that the indexpatternth byte of the pattern, then skip
this row.
66
Otherwise, increment indexpattern to the next byte in the mask
and pattern and indexstream to the next byte in the byte
stream.
↪ Otherwise, if the indexstreamth byte of the pattern is a "WS"

byte:
"WS" means "whitespace", and allows insignificant whitespace
to be skipped when sniffing for a type signature.
If the indexstreamth byte of the stream is one of 0x09 (ASCII

TAB), 0x0A (ASCII LF), 0x0C (ASCII FF), 0x0D (ASCII CR), or 0x20
(ASCII space), then increment only the indexstream to the next
byte in the byte stream.
Otherwise, increment only the indexpattern to the next byte in

the mask and pattern.
5. If indexpattern does not point beyond the end of the mask and pattern
byte strings, then jump back to the loop step in this algorithm.
6. Otherwise, the sniffed type of the resource is the type given in the cell
of the third column in that row; abort these steps.
4. As a last-ditch effort, jump to the text or binary (page 65) section.
Bytes in Hexadecimal Sniffed type Comment

Mask Pattern
FF FF DF DF DF DF 3C 21 44 4F 43 54 text/html The string "<!DOCTYPE HTML" in US-ASCII or
DF DF DF FF DF DF 59 50 45 20 48 54 compatible encodings, case-insensitively.
DF DF 4D 4C
FF FF DF DF DF DF WS 3C 48 54 4D 4C text/html The string "<HTML" in US-ASCII or compatible
encodings, case-insensitively, possibly with leading
spaces.
FF FF DF DF DF DF WS 3C 48 45 41 44 text/html The string "<HEAD" in US-ASCII or compatible
encodings, case-insensitively, possibly with leading
spaces.
FF FF DF DF DF DF WS 3C 53 43 52 49 text/html The string "<SCRIPT" in US-ASCII or compatible
DF DF 50 54 encodings, case-insensitively, possibly with leading
spaces.
FF FF FF FF FF 25 50 44 46 2D application/pdf The string "%PDF-", the PDF signature.
FF FF FF FF FF FF FF 25 21 50 53 2D 41 application/ The string "%!PS-Adobe-", the PostScript signature.
FF FF FF FF 64 6F 62 65 2D postscript
FF FF FF FF FF FF 47 49 46 38 37 61 image/gif The string "GIF87a", a GIF signature.
FF FF FF FF FF FF 47 49 46 38 39 61 image/gif The string "GIF89a", a GIF signature.
FF FF FF FF FF FF FF 89 50 4E 47 0D 0A image/png The PNG signature.
FF 1A 0A
FF FF FF FF D8 FF image/jpeg A JPEG SOI marker followed by the first byte of
another marker.
FF FF 42 4D image/bmp The string "BM", a BMP signature.
67
Bytes in Hexadecimal Sniffed type Comment
Mask Pattern
FF FF FF FF 00 00 01 00 image/ A 0 word following by a 1 word, a Windows Icon file
vnd.microsoft.icon format signature.
User agents may support further types if desired, by implicitly adding to the above table.
However, user agents should not use any other patterns for types already mentioned in the
table above, as this could then be used for privilege escalation (where, e.g., a server uses the
above table to determine that content is not HTML and thus safe from XSS attacks, but then a
user agent detects it as HTML anyway and allows script to execute).
2.7.5 Content-Type sniffing: image
If the first bytes of the file match one of the byte sequences in the first columns of the following
table, then the sniffed type of the resource is the type given in the corresponding cell in the
second column on the same row:
Bytes in Sniffed type Comment

Hexadecimal
47 49 46 38 37 61 image/gif The string "GIF87a", a GIF signature.
47 49 46 38 39 61 image/gif The string "GIF89a", a GIF signature.
89 50 4E 47 0D 0A 1A image/png The PNG signature.
0A
FF D8 FF image/jpeg A JPEG SOI marker followed by the first byte of another marker.
42 4D image/bmp The string "BM", a BMP signature.
00 00 01 00 image/ A 0 word following by a 1 word, a Windows Icon file format
vnd.microsoft.icon signature.
User agents must ignore any rows for image types that they do not support.
Otherwise, the sniffed type of the resource is the same as its official type.
2.7.6 Content-Type sniffing: feed or HTML
2. Let s be the stream of bytes, and let s[i] represent the byte in s with position i, treating s
as zero-indexed (so the first byte is at i=0).
3. If at any point this algorithm requires the user agent to determine the value of a byte in
s which is not yet available, or which is past the first 512 bytes of the resource, or which
is beyond the end of the resource, the user agent must stop this algorithm, and assume
that the sniffed type of the resource is "text/html".
Note: User agents are allowed, by the first step of this algorithm, to
wait until the first 512 bytes of the resource are available.
68
4. Initialise pos to 0.
5. If s[0] is 0xEF, s[1] is 0xBB, and s[2] is 0xBF, then set pos to 3. (This skips over a leading
UTF-8 BOM, if any.)
6. Loop start: Examine s[pos].
↪ If it is 0x09 (ASCII tab), 0x20 (ASCII space), 0x0A (ASCII LF), or 0x0D (ASCII
CR)
Increase pos by 1 and repeat this step.
↪ If it is 0x3C (ASCII "<")

Increase pos by 1 and go to the next step.
↪ If it is anything else
The sniffed type of the resource is "text/html". Abort these steps.
7. If the bytes with positions pos to pos+2 in s are exactly equal to 0x21, 0x2D, 0x2D
respectively (ASCII for "!--"), then:
1. Increase pos by 3.
2. If the bytes with positions pos to pos+2 in s are exactly equal to 0x2D, 0x2D,
0x3E respectively (ASCII for "-->"), then increase pos by 3 and jump back to the
previous step (the step labeled loop start) in the overall algorithm in this section.
3. Otherwise, increase pos by 1.
4. Return to step 2 in these substeps.
8. If s[pos] is 0x21 (ASCII "!"):
2. If s[pos] equal 0x3E, then increase pos by 1 and jump back to the step labeled
loop start in the overall algorithm in this section.
3. Otherwise, return to step 1 in these substeps.
9. If s[pos] is 0x3F (ASCII "?"):
2. If s[pos] and s[pos+1] equal 0x3F and 0x3E respectively, then increase pos by 1
and jump back to the step labeled loop start in the overall algorithm in this
section.
3. Otherwise, return to step 1 in these substeps.
10. Otherwise, if the bytes in s starting at pos match any of the sequences of bytes in the
first column of the following table, then the user agent must follow the steps given in the
corresponding cell in the second column of the same row.
69
Bytes in Requirement Comment
Hexadecimal
72 73 73 The sniffed type of the resource is "application/rss+xml"; The three ASCII
abort these steps characters "rss"
66 65 65 64 The sniffed type of the resource is "application/atom+xml"; The four ASCII
abort these steps characters "feed"
72 64 66 3A 52 44 Continue to the next step in this algorithm The ASCII characters
46 "rdf:RDF"
If none of the byte sequences above match the bytes in s starting at pos, then the
sniffed type of the resource is "text/html". Abort these steps.
11. If, before the next ">", you find two xmlns* attributes with http://www.w3.org/1999/
02/22-rdf-syntax-ns# and http://purl.org/rss/1.0/ as the namespaces, then the sniffed
type of the resource is "application/rss+xml", abort these steps. (maybe we only need
to check for http://purl.org/rss/1.0/ actually)
12. Otherwise, the sniffed type of the resource is "text/html".
Note: For efficiency reasons, implementations may wish to implement this

algorithm and the algorithm for detecting the character encoding of HTML
documents in parallel.
70
3. Semantics and structure of HTML documents
3.1 Introduction
An introduction to marking up a document.
3.2 Documents
Every XML and HTML document in an HTML UA is represented by a Document object.

[DOM3CORE]
3.2.1 Documents in the DOM
Document objects are assumed to be XML documents unless they are flagged as being HTML
documents when they are created. Whether a document is an HTML document (page 71) or an
XML document (page 71) affects the behavior of certain APIs, as well as a few CSS rendering
rules. [CSS21]
Note: A Document object created by the createDocument() API on the

DOMImplementation object is initially an XML document (page 71), but can be
made into an HTML document (page 71) by calling document.open() on it.
All Document objects (in user agents implementing this specification) must also implement the
HTMLDocument interface, available using binding-specific methods. (This is the case whether or
not the document in question is an HTML document (page 71) or indeed whether it contains any
HTML elements (page 27) at all.) Document objects must also implement the document-level
interface of any other namespaces found in the document that the UA supports. For example, if
an HTML implementation also supports SVG, then the Document object must implement
HTMLDocument and SVGDocument.
Note: Because the HTMLDocument interface is now obtained using

binding-specific casting methods instead of simply being the primary interface
of the document object, it is no longer defined as inheriting from Document.
interface HTMLDocument {
// resource metadata management
[PutForwards=href] readonly attribute Location location;
readonly attribute DOMString URL;
attribute DOMString domain;
readonly attribute DOMString referrer;
attribute DOMString cookie;
readonly attribute DOMString lastModified;
71
readonly attribute DOMString compatMode;
attribute DOMString charset;
readonly attribute DOMString characterSet;
readonly attribute DOMString defaultCharset;
readonly attribute DOMString readyState;
// DOM tree accessors

attribute DOMString title;
attribute DOMString dir;
attribute HTMLElement body;
readonly attribute HTMLCollection images;
readonly attribute HTMLCollection embeds;
readonly attribute HTMLCollection plugins;
readonly attribute HTMLCollection links;
readonly attribute HTMLCollection forms;
readonly attribute HTMLCollection anchors;
readonly attribute HTMLCollection scripts;
NodeList getElementsByName(in DOMString elementName);
NodeList getElementsByClassName(in DOMString classNames);
// dynamic markup insertion

attribute DOMString innerHTML;
HTMLDocument open();
HTMLDocument open(in DOMString type);
HTMLDocument open(in DOMString type, in DOMString replace);
Window open(in DOMString url, in DOMString name, in DOMString features);
Window open(in DOMString url, in DOMString name, in DOMString features,
in boolean replace);
void close();
void write(in DOMString text);
void writeln(in DOMString text);
// user interaction
Selection getSelection();
readonly attribute Element activeElement;
boolean hasFocus();
attribute boolean designMode;
boolean execCommand(in DOMString commandId);
boolean execCommand(in DOMString commandId, in boolean showUI);
boolean execCommand(in DOMString commandId, in boolean showUI, in
DOMString value);
boolean queryCommandEnabled(in DOMString commandId);
boolean queryCommandIndeterm(in DOMString commandId);
boolean queryCommandState(in DOMString commandId);
boolean queryCommandSupported(in DOMString commandId);
DOMString queryCommandValue(in DOMString commandId);
72
readonly attribute HTMLCollection commands;
};
Since the HTMLDocument interface holds methods and attributes related to a number of disparate
features, the members of this interface are described in various different sections.
3.2.2 Security
User agents must raise a security exception (page 369) whenever any of the members of an
HTMLDocument object are accessed by scripts whose effective script origin (page 363) is not the
same (page 366) as the Document's effective script origin (page 363).
3.2.3 Resource metadata management
The URL attribute must return the document's address.
The referrer attribute must return either the address of the active document (page 354) of the
source browsing context (page 410) at the time the navigation was started (that is, the page
which navigated (page 410) the browsing context (page 354) to the current document), or the
empty string if there is no such originating page, or if the UA has been configured not to report
referrers in this case, or if the navigation was initiated for a hyperlink (page 436) with a
noreferrer keyword.
Note: In the case of HTTP, the referrer DOM attribute will match the Referer
(sic) header that was sent when fetching the current page.
Note: Typically user agents are configured to not report referrers in the case
where the referrer uses an encrypted protocol and the current page does not
(e.g. when navigating from an https: page to an http: page).
The cookie attribute represents the cookies of the resource.
On getting, if the sandboxed origin browsing context flag (page 199) is set on the browsing
context (page 354) of the document, the user agent must raise a security exception (page 369).
Otherwise, it must return the same string as the value of the Cookie HTTP header it would
include if fetching the resource indicated by the document's address over HTTP, as per RFC 2109
section 4.3.4 or later specifications. [RFC2109] [RFC2965]
On setting, if the sandboxed origin browsing context flag (page 199) is set on the browsing
context (page 354) of the document, the user agent must raise a security exception (page 369).
Otherwise, the user agent must act as it would when processing cookies if it had just attempted
to fetch the document's address over HTTP, and had received a response with a Set-Cookie
header whose value was the specified value, as per RFC 2109 sections 4.3.1, 4.3.2, and 4.3.3 or
later specifications. [RFC2109] [RFC2965]
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Note: Since the cookie attribute is accessible across frames, the path
restrictions on cookies are only a tool to help manage which cookies are sent
to which parts of the site, and are not in any way a security feature.
The lastModified attribute, on getting, must return the date and time of the Document's source
file's last modification, in the user's local timezone, in the following format:
1. The month component of the date.
2. A U+002F SOLIDUS character ('/').
3. The day component of the date.
4. A U+002F SOLIDUS character ('/').
5. The year component of the date.
6. A U+0020 SPACE character.
7. The hours component of the time.
8. A U+003A COLON character (':').
9. The minutes component of the time.
10. A U+003A COLON character (':').
11. The seconds component of the time.
All the numeric components above, other than the year, must be given as two digits in the range
U+0030 DIGIT ZERO to U+0039 DIGIT NINE representing the number in base ten, zero-padded if
necessary.
The Document's source file's last modification date and time must be derived from relevant
features of the networking protocols used, e.g. from the value of the HTTP Last-Modified
header of the document, or from metadata in the file system for local files. If the last
modification date and time are not known, the attribute must return the string 01/01/1970
00:00:00.
A Document is always set to one of three modes: no quirks mode, the default; quirks mode,
used typically for legacy documents; and limited quirks mode, also known as "almost
standards" mode. The mode is only ever changed from the default by the HTML parser (page
518), based on the presence, absence, or value of the DOCTYPE string.
The compatMode DOM attribute must return the literal string "CSS1Compat" unless the document
has been set to quirks mode (page 74) by the HTML parser (page 518), in which case it must
instead return the literal string "BackCompat".
As far as parsing goes, the quirks I know of are:
74
• Comment parsing is different.
• p can contain table
• Safari and IE have special parsing rules for <% ... %> (even in standards mode,
though clearly this should be quirks-only).
Documents have an associated character encoding. When a Document object is created, the
document's character encoding (page 75) must be initialized to UTF-16. Various algorithms
during page loading affect this value, as does the charset setter. [IANACHARSET]
The charset DOM attribute must, on getting, return the preferred MIME name of the document's
character encoding (page 75). On setting, if the new value is an IANA-registered alias for a
character encoding, the document's character encoding (page 75) must be set to that character
encoding. (Otherwise, nothing happens.)
The characterSet DOM attribute must, on getting, return the preferred MIME name of the
document's character encoding (page 75).
The defaultCharset DOM attribute must, on getting, return the preferred MIME name of a
character encoding, possibly the user's default encoding, or an encoding associated with the
user's current geographical location, or any arbitrary encoding name.
Each document has a current document readiness. When a Document object is created, it
must have its current document readiness (page 75) set to the string "loading". Various
algorithms during page loading affect this value. When the value is set, the user agent must fire
a simple event (page 375) called readystatechanged at the Document object.
The readyState DOM attribute must, on getting, return the current document readiness (page
75).
3.2.4 DOM tree accessors
The html element of a document is the document's root element, if there is one and it's an
html element, or null otherwise.
The head element of a document is the first head element that is a child of the html element
(page 75), if there is one, or null otherwise.
The title element of a document is the first title element in the document (in tree order), if
there is one, or null otherwise.
The title attribute must, on getting, run the following algorithm:
1. If the root element (page 27) is an svg element in the "http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"

namespace, and the user agent supports SVG, then the getter must return the value
75
that would have been returned by the DOM attribute of the same name on the
SVGDocument interface.
2. Otherwise, it must return a concatenation of the data of all the child text nodes (page
28) of the title element (page 75), in tree order, or the empty string if the title
element (page 75) is null.
On setting, the following algorithm must be run:
1. If the root element (page 27) is an svg element in the "http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"

namespace, and the user agent supports SVG, then the setter must defer to the setter
for the DOM attribute of the same name on the SVGDocument interface. Stop the
algorithm here.
2. If the title element (page 75) is null and the head element (page 75) is null, then the
attribute must do nothing. Stop the algorithm here.
3. If the title element (page 75) is null, then a new title element must be created and
appended to the head element (page 75).
4. The children of the title element (page 75) (if any) must all be removed.
5. A single Text node whose data is the new value being assigned must be appended to
the title element (page 75).
The title attribute on the HTMLDocument interface should shadow the attribute of the same
name on the SVGDocument interface when the user agent supports both HTML and SVG.
The body element of a document is the first child of the html element (page 75) that is either
a body element or a frameset element. If there is no such element, it is null. If the body element
is null, then when the specification requires that events be fired at "the body element", they
must instead be fired at the Document object.
The body attribute, on getting, must return the body element (page 76) of the document (either
a body element, a frameset element, or null). On setting, the following algorithm must be run:
1. If the new value is not a body or frameset element, then raise a

HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR exception and abort these steps.
2. Otherwise, if the new value is the same as the body element (page 76), do nothing.
Abort these steps.
3. Otherwise, if the body element (page 76) is not null, then replace that element with the
new value in the DOM, as if the root element's replaceChild() method had been called
with the new value and the incumbent body element (page 76) as its two arguments
respectively, then abort these steps.
4. Otherwise, the the body element (page 76) is null. Append the new value to the root
element.
76
The images attribute must return an HTMLCollection rooted at the Document node, whose filter
matches only img elements.
The embeds attribute must return an HTMLCollection rooted at the Document node, whose filter
matches only embed elements.
The plugins attribute must return the same object as that returned by the embeds attribute.
The links attribute must return an HTMLCollection rooted at the Document node, whose filter
matches only a elements with href attributes and area elements with href attributes.
The forms attribute must return an HTMLCollection rooted at the Document node, whose filter
matches only form elements.
The anchors attribute must return an HTMLCollection rooted at the Document node, whose
filter matches only a elements with name attributes.
The scripts attribute must return an HTMLCollection rooted at the Document node, whose
filter matches only script elements.
The getElementsByName(name) method a string name, and must return a live NodeList
containing all the a, applet, button, form, iframe, img, input, map, meta, object, select, and
textarea elements in that document that have a name attribute whose value is equal to the
name argument.
The getElementsByClassName(classNames) method takes a string that contains an unordered

set of unique space-separated tokens (page 52) representing classes. When called, the method
must return a live NodeList object containing all the elements in the document that have all the
classes specified in that argument, having obtained the classes by splitting a string on spaces
(page 52). If there are no tokens specified in the argument, then the method must return an
empty NodeList.
The getElementsByClassName() method on the HTMLElement interface must return a live

NodeList with the nodes that the HTMLDocument getElementsByClassName() method would
return when passed the same argument(s), excluding any elements that are not descendants of
the HTMLElement object on which the method was invoked.
HTML, SVG, and MathML elements define which classes they are in by having an attribute in the
per-element partition with the name class containing a space-separated list of classes to which
the element belongs. Other specifications may also allow elements in their namespaces to be
labeled as being in specific classes. UAs must not assume that all attributes of the name class
for elements in any namespace work in this way, however, and must not assume that such
attributes, when used as global attributes, label other elements as being in specific classes.
Given the following XHTML fragment:
<div id="example">
<p id="p1" class="aaa bbb"/>
<p id="p2" class="aaa ccc"/>
<p id="p3" class="bbb ccc"/>
</div>
77
A call to document.getElementById('example').getElementsByClassName('aaa') would
return a NodeList with the two paragraphs p1 and p2 in it.
A call to getElementsByClassName('ccc bbb') would only return one node, however,

namely p3. A call to
document.getElementById('example').getElementsByClassName('bbb ccc ') would
return the same thing.
A call to getElementsByClassName('aaa,bbb') would return no nodes; none of the

elements above are in the "aaa,bbb" class.
Note: The dir attribute on the HTMLDocument interface is defined along with the
dir content attribute.
3.3 Elements
3.3.1 Semantics
Elements, attributes, and attribute values in HTML are defined (by this specification) to have
certain meanings (semantics). For example, the ol element represents an ordered list, and the
lang attribute represents the language of the content.
Authors must not use elements, attributes, and attribute values for purposes other than their
appropriate intended semantic purpose.
For example, the following document is non-conforming, despite being syntactically correct:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en-GB">
<head> <title> Demonstration </title> </head>
<body>
<table>
<tr> <td> My favourite animal is the cat. </td> </tr>
<tr>
<td>
—<a href="http://example.org/~ernest/"><cite>Ernest</cite></a>,
in an essay from 1992
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
...because the data placed in the cells is clearly not tabular data (and the cite element
mis-used). A corrected version of this document might be:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en-GB">
<head> <title> Demonstration </title> </head>
78
<body>
<blockquote>
<p> My favourite animal is the cat. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>
—<a href="http://example.org/~ernest/">Ernest</a>,
in an essay from 1992
</p>
</body>
</html>
This next document fragment, intended to represent the heading of a corporate site, is
similarly non-conforming because the second line is not intended to be a heading of a
subsection, but merely a subheading or subtitle (a subordinate heading for the same
section).
<body>
<h1>ABC Company</h1>
<h2>Leading the way in widget design since 1432</h2>
...
The header element should be used in these kinds of situations:
<body>
<header>
<h1>ABC Company</h1>
<h2>Leading the way in widget design since 1432</h2>
</header>
...
Through scripting and using other mechanisms, the values of attributes, text, and indeed the
entire structure of the document may change dynamically while a user agent is processing it.
The semantics of a document at an instant in time are those represented by the state of the
document at that instant in time, and the semantics of a document can therefore change over
time. User agents must update their presentation of the document as this occurs.
HTML has a progress element that describes a progress bar. If its "value" attribute is
dynamically updated by a script, the UA would update the rendering to show the progress
changing.
3.3.2 Elements in the DOM
The nodes representing HTML elements (page 27) in the DOM must implement, and expose to
scripts, the interfaces listed for them in the relevant sections of this specification. This includes
HTML elements (page 27) in XML documents (page 71), even when those documents are in
another context (e.g. inside an XSLT transform).
Elements in the DOM represent things; that is, they have intrinsic meaning, also known as
semantics.
79
For example, an ol element represents an ordered list.
The basic interface, from which all the HTML elements (page 27)' interfaces inherit, and which
must be used by elements that have no additional requirements, is the HTMLElement interface.
interface HTMLElement : Element {

// DOM tree accessors
NodeList getElementsByClassName(in DOMString classNames);
// dynamic markup insertion

attribute DOMString innerHTML;
// metadata attributes
attribute DOMString id;
attribute DOMString title;
attribute DOMString lang;
attribute DOMString dir;
attribute DOMString className;
readonly attribute DOMTokenList classList;
readonly attribute DOMStringMap dataset;
// user interaction
attribute boolean irrelevant;
void click();
void scrollIntoView();
void scrollIntoView(in boolean top);
attribute long tabIndex;
void focus();
void blur();
attribute boolean draggable;
attribute DOMString contentEditable;
readonly attribute DOMString isContentEditable;
attribute HTMLMenuElement contextMenu;
// styling
readonly attribute CSSStyleDeclaration style;
// data templates
attribute DOMString template;
readonly attribute HTMLDataTemplateElement templateElement;
attribute DOMString ref;
readonly attribute Node refNode;
attribute DOMString registrationMark;
readonly attribute DocumentFragment originalContent;
// event handler DOM attributes

attribute EventListener onabort;
attribute EventListener onbeforeunload;
80
attribute EventListener onblur;
attribute EventListener onchange;
attribute EventListener onclick;
attribute EventListener oncontextmenu;
attribute EventListener ondblclick;
attribute EventListener ondrag;
attribute EventListener ondragend;
attribute EventListener ondragenter;
attribute EventListener ondragleave;
attribute EventListener ondragover;
attribute EventListener ondragstart;
attribute EventListener ondrop;
attribute EventListener onerror;
attribute EventListener onfocus;
attribute EventListener onkeydown;
attribute EventListener onkeypress;
attribute EventListener onkeyup;
attribute EventListener onload;
attribute EventListener onmessage;
attribute EventListener onmousedown;
attribute EventListener onmousemove;
attribute EventListener onmouseout;
attribute EventListener onmouseover;
attribute EventListener onmouseup;
attribute EventListener onmousewheel;
attribute EventListener onresize;
attribute EventListener onscroll;
attribute EventListener onselect;
attribute EventListener onstorage;
attribute EventListener onsubmit;
attribute EventListener onunload;
};
The HTMLElement interface holds methods and attributes related to a number of disparate
features, and the members of this interface are therefore described in various different sections
of this specification.
3.3.3 Global attributes
The following attributes are common to and may be specified on all HTML elements (page 27)
(even those not defined in this specification):
Global attributes:
class
contenteditable
81
contextmenu
dir
draggable
id
irrelevant
lang
ref
registrationmark
style
tabindex
template
title
In addition, the following event handler content attributes (page 371) may be specified on any
HTML element:
Event handler content attributes:

onabort
onbeforeunload
onblur
onchange
onclick
oncontextmenu
ondblclick
ondrag
ondragend
ondragenter
ondragleave
ondragover
ondragstart
ondrop
onerror
onfocus
onkeydown
onkeypress
onkeyup
onload
onmessa
onm
82
Also, custom data attributes (page 86) (e.g. data-foldername or data-msgid) can be specified
on any HTML element, to store custom data specific to the page.
In HTML documents (page 71), elements in the HTML namespace (page 593) may have an xmlns
attribute specified, if, and only if, it has the exact value "http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml". This
does not apply to XML documents (page 71).
Note: In HTML, the xmlns attribute has absolutely no effect. It is basically a

talisman. It is allowed merely to make migration to and from XHTML mildly
easier. When parsed by an HTML parser (page 518), the attribute ends up in
no namespace, not the "http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/" namespace like
namespace declaration attributes in XML do.
Note: In XML, an xmlns attribute is part of the namespace declaration

mechanism, and an element cannot actually have an xmlns attribute in no
namespace specified.
3.3.3.1. The id attribute
The id attribute represents its element's unique identifier. The value must be unique in the
subtree within which the element finds itself and must contain at least one character. The value
must not contain any space characters (page 36).
If the value is not the empty string, user agents must associate the element with the given value
(exactly, including any space characters) for the purposes of ID matching within the subtree the
element finds itself (e.g. for selectors in CSS or for the getElementById() method in the DOM).
Identifiers are opaque strings. Particular meanings should not be derived from the value of the
id attribute.
This specification doesn't preclude an element having multiple IDs, if other mechanisms (e.g.
DOM Core methods) can set an element's ID in a way that doesn't conflict with the id attribute.
The id DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the id content attribute.
3.3.3.2. The title attribute
The title attribute represents advisory information for the element, such as would be
appropriate for a tooltip. On a link, this could be the title or a description of the target resource;
on an image, it could be the image credit or a description of the image; on a paragraph, it could
83
be a footnote or commentary on the text; on a citation, it could be further information about the
source; and so forth. The value is text.
If this attribute is omitted from an element, then it implies that the title attribute of the
nearest ancestor HTML element (page 27) with a title attribute set is also relevant to this
element. Setting the attribute overrides this, explicitly stating that the advisory information of
any ancestors is not relevant to this element. Setting the attribute to the empty string indicates
that the element has no advisory information.
If the title attribute's value contains U+000A LINE FEED (LF) characters, the content is split
into multiple lines. Each U+000A LINE FEED (LF) character represents a line break.
Some elements, such as link and abbr, define additional semantics for the title attribute
beyond the semantics described above.
The title DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the title content attribute.
3.3.3.3. The lang (HTML only) and xml:lang (XML only) attributes
The lang attribute specifies the primary language for the element's contents and for any of the
element's attributes that contain text. Its value must be a valid RFC 3066 language code, or the
empty string. [RFC3066]
The xml:lang attribute is defined in XML. [XML]
If these attributes are omitted from an element, then it implies that the language of this element
is the same as the language of the parent element. Setting the attribute to the empty string
indicates that the primary language is unknown.
The lang attribute may be used on elements of HTML documents (page 71). Authors must not
use the lang attribute in XML documents (page 71).
The xml:lang attribute may be used on elements of XML documents (page 71). Authors must
not use the xml:lang attribute in HTML documents (page 71).
To determine the language of a node, user agents must look at the nearest ancestor element
(including the element itself if the node is an element) that has an xml:lang attribute set or is
an HTML element (page 27) and has a lang attribute set. That attribute specifies the language
of the node.
If both the xml:lang attribute and the lang attribute are set on an element, user agents must
use the xml:lang attribute, and the lang attribute must be ignored (page 28) for the purposes
of determining the element's language.
If no explicit language is given for the root element (page 27), then language information from a
higher-level protocol (such as HTTP), if any, must be used as the final fallback language. In the
absence of any language information, the default value is unknown (the empty string).
User agents may use the element's language to determine proper processing or rendering (e.g.
in the selection of appropriate fonts or pronunciations, or for dictionary selection).
84
The lang DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the lang content attribute.
3.3.3.4. The xml:base attribute (XML only)
The xml:base attribute is defined in XML Base. [XMLBASE]
The xml:base attribute may be used on elements of XML documents (page 71). Authors must
not use the xml:base attribute in HTML documents (page 71).
3.3.3.5. The dir attribute
The dir attribute specifies the element's text directionality. The attribute is an enumerated
attribute (page 54) with the keyword ltr mapping to the state ltr, and the keyword rtl mapping
to the state rtl. The attribute has no defaults.
If the attribute has the state ltr, the element's directionality is left-to-right. If the attribute has
the state rtl, the element's directionality is right-to-left. Otherwise, the element's directionality is
the same as its parent element, or ltr if there is no parent element.
The processing of this attribute depends on the presentation layer. For example, CSS 2.1 defines
a mapping from this attribute to the CSS 'direction' and 'unicode-bidi' properties, and defines
rendering in terms of those properties.
The dir DOM attribute on an element must reflect (page 55) the dir content attribute of that
element, limited to only known values (page 55).
The dir DOM attribute on HTMLDocument objects must reflect (page 55) the dir content
attribute of the html element (page 75), if any, limited to only known values (page 55). If there
is no such element, then the attribute must return the empty string and do nothing on setting.
3.3.3.6. The class attribute
Every HTML element (page 27) may have a class attribute specified.
The attribute, if specified, must have a value that is an unordered set of unique space-separated
tokens (page 52) representing the various classes that the element belongs to.
The classes that an HTML element (page 27) has assigned to it consists of all the classes
returned when the value of the class attribute is split on spaces (page 52).
Note: Assigning classes to an element affects class matching in selectors in

CSS, the getElementsByClassName() method in the DOM, and other such
features.
Authors may use any value in the class attribute, but are encouraged to use the values that
describe the nature of the content, rather than values that describe the desired presentation of
the content.
85
The className and classList DOM attributes must both reflect (page 55) the class content
attribute.
3.3.3.7. The style attribute
All elements may have the style content attribute set. If specified, the attribute must contain
only a list of zero or more semicolon-separated (;) CSS declarations. [CSS21]
The attribute, if specified, must be parsed and treated as the body (the part inside the curly
brackets) of a declaration block in a rule whose selector matches just the element on which the
attribute is set. For the purposes of the CSS cascade, the attribute must be considered to be a
'style' attribute at the author level.
Documents that use style attributes on any of their elements must still be comprehensible and
usable if those attributes were removed.
Note: In particular, using the style attribute to hide and show content, or to
convey meaning that is otherwise not included in the document, is
non-conforming.
The style DOM attribute must return a CSSStyleDeclaration whose value represents the
declarations specified in the attribute, if present. Mutating the CSSStyleDeclaration object
must create a style attribute on the element (if there isn't one already) and then change its
value to be a value representing the serialized form of the CSSStyleDeclaration object.
[CSSOM]
In the following example, the words that refer to colors are marked up using the span
element and the style attribute to make those words show up in the relevant colors in
visual media.
<p>My sweat suit is <span style="color: green; background:

transparent">green</span> and my eyes are <span style="color: blue;
background: transparent">blue</span>.</p>
3.3.3.8. Embedding custom non-visible data
A custom data attribute is an attribute whose name starts with the string "data-", has at
least one character after the hyphen, is XML-compatible (page 27), and has no namespace.
Custom data attributes (page 86) are intended to store custom data private to the page or
application, for which there are no more appropriate attributes or elements.
Every HTML element (page 27) may have any number of custom data attributes (page 86)
specified, with any value.
The dataset DOM attribute provides convenient accessors for all the data-* attributes on an
element. On getting, the dataset DOM attribute must return a DOMStringMap object, associated
with the following three algorithms, which expose these attributes on their element:
86
The algorithm for getting values from names
1. Let name be the concatenation of the string data- and the name passed to the
algorithm.
2. If the element does not have an attribute with the name name, then the name has
no corresponding value, abort.
3. Otherwise, return the value of the attribute with the name name.
The algorithm for setting names to certain values
algorithm.
2. Let value be the value passed to the algorithm.
3. Set the value of the attribute with the name name, to the value value, replacing any
previous value if the attribute already existed. If setAttribute() would have raised
an exception when setting an attribute with the name name, then this must raise
the same exception.
The algorithm for deleting names
algorithm.
2. Remove the attribute with the name name, if such an attribute exists. Do nothing
otherwise.
If a Web page wanted an element to represent a space ship, e.g. as part of a game, it would
have to use the class attribute along with data-* attributes:
<div class="spaceship" data-id="92432"

data-weapons="laser 2" data-shields="50%"
data-x="30" data-y="10" data-z="90">
<button class="fire"
onclick="spaceships[this.parentNode.dataset.id].fire()">
Fire
</button>
</div>
Authors should carefully design such extensions so that when the attributes are ignored and any
associated CSS dropped, the page is still usable.
User agents must not derive any implementation behavior from these attributes or values.
Specifications intended for user agents must not define these attributes to have any meaningful
values.
87
3.4 Content models
All the elements in this specification have a defined content model, which describes what nodes
are allowed inside the elements, and thus what the structure of an HTML document or fragment
must look like.
Note: As noted in the conformance and terminology sections, for the purposes
of determining if an element matches its content model or not, CDATASection
nodes in the DOM are treated as equivalent to Text nodes (page 28), and
entity reference nodes are treated as if they were expanded in place (page
24).
The space characters (page 36) are always allowed between elements. User agents represent
these characters between elements in the source markup as text nodes in the DOM. Empty text
nodes (page 28) and text nodes (page 28) consisting of just sequences of those characters are
considered inter-element whitespace.
Inter-element whitespace (page 88), comment nodes, and processing instruction nodes must be
ignored when establishing whether an element matches its content model or not, and must be
ignored when following algorithms that define document and element semantics.
An element A is said to be preceded or followed by a second element B if A and B have the

same parent node and there are no other element nodes or text nodes (other than inter-element
whitespace (page 88)) between them.
Authors must not use elements in the HTML namespace (page 27) anywhere except where they
are explicitly allowed, as defined for each element, or as explicitly required by other
specifications. For XML compound documents, these contexts could be inside elements from
other namespaces, if those elements are defined as providing the relevant contexts.
The SVG specification defines the SVG foreignObject element as allowing foreign
namespaces to be included, thus allowing compound documents to be created by inserting
subdocument content under that element. This specification defines the XHTML html
element as being allowed where subdocument fragments are allowed in a compound
document. Together, these two definitions mean that placing an XHTML html element as a
child of an SVG foreignObject element is conforming. [SVG]
The Atom specification defines the Atom content element, when its type attribute has the
value xhtml, as requiring that it contains a single HTML div element. Thus, a div element is
allowed in that context, even though this is not explicitly normatively stated by this
specification. [ATOM]
In addition, elements in the HTML namespace (page 27) may be orphan nodes (i.e. without a
parent node).
For example, creating a td element and storing it in a global variable in a script is

conforming, even though td elements are otherwise only supposed to be used inside tr
elements.
88
var data = {
name: "Banana",
cell: document.createElement('td'),
};
3.4.1 Kinds of content
Each element in HTML falls into zero or more categories that group elements with similar
characteristics together. The following categories are used in this specification:
• Metadata content (page 89)

• Flow content (page 89)
• Sectioning content (page 90)
• Heading content (page 90)
• Phrasing content (page 90)
• Embedded content (page 90)
• Form control content
• Interactive content (page 91)
Some elements have unique requirements and do not fit into any particular category.
3.4.1.1. Metadata content
Metadata content is content that sets up the presentation or behavior of the rest of the
content, or that sets up the relationship of the document with other documents, or that conveys
other "out of band" information.
Elements from other namespaces whose semantics are primarily metadata-related (e.g. RDF)
are also metadata content (page 89).
3.4.1.2. Flow content
Most elements that are used in the body of documents and applications are categorized as flow
content.
As a general rule, elements whose content model allows any flow content (page 89) should have
either at least one descendant text node that is not inter-element whitespace (page 88), or at
least one descendant element node that is embedded content (page 90). For the purposes of
this requirement, del elements and their descendants must not be counted as contributing to
the ancestors of the del element.
This requirement is not a hard requirement, however, as there are many cases where an
element can be empty legitimately, for example when it is used as a placeholder which will later
be filled in by a script, or when the element is part of a template and would on most pages be
filled in but on some pages is not relevant.
89
3.4.1.3. Sectioning content
Sectioning content is content that defines the scope of headers (page 90), footers (page 122),
and contact information (page 123).
Each sectioning content (page 90) element potentially has a heading. See the section on
headings and sections (page 124) for further details.
3.4.1.4. Heading content
Heading content defines the header of a section (whether explicitly marked up using
sectioning content (page 90) elements, or implied by the heading content itself).
3.4.1.5. Phrasing content
Phrasing content is the text of the document, as well as elements that mark up that text at
the intra-paragraph level. Runs of phrasing content (page 90) form paragraphs (page 92).
All phrasing content (page 90) is also flow content (page 89). Any content model that expects
flow content (page 89) also expects phrasing content (page 90).
As a general rule, elements whose content model allows any phrasing content (page 90) should
have either at least one descendant text node that is not inter-element whitespace (page 88), or
at least one descendant element node that is embedded content (page 90). For the purposes of
this requirement, nodes that are descendants of del elements must not be counted as
contributing to the ancestors of the del element.
Note: Most elements that are categorized as phrasing content can only contain
elements that are themselves categorized as phrasing content, not any flow
content.
Text nodes that are not inter-element whitespace (page 88) are phrasing content (page 90).
3.4.1.6. Embedded content
Embedded content is content that imports another resource into the document, or content
from another vocabulary that is inserted into the document.
All embedded content (page 90) is also phrasing content (page 90) (and flow content (page 89)).
Any content model that expects phrasing content (page 90) (or flow content (page 89)) also
expects embedded content (page 90).
Elements that are from namespaces other than the HTML namespace (page 593) and that
convey content but not metadata, are embedded content (page 90) for the purposes of the
content models defined in this specification. (For example, MathML, or SVG.)
90
Some embedded content elements can have fallback content: content that is to be used when
the external resource cannot be used (e.g. because it is of an unsupported format). The element
definitions state what the fallback is, if any.
3.4.1.7. Interactive content
Parts of this section should eventually be moved to DOM3 Events.
Interactive content is content that is specifically intended for user interaction.
Certain elements in HTML can be activated, for instance a elements, button elements, or input
elements when their type attribute is set to radio. Activation of those elements can happen in
various (UA-defined) ways, for instance via the mouse or keyboard.
When activation is performed via some method other than clicking the pointing device, the
default action of the event that triggers the activation must, instead of being activating the
element directly, be to fire a click event (page 374) on the same element.
The default action of this click event, or of the real click event if the element was activated by
clicking a pointing device, must be to fire a further DOMActivate event at the same element,
whose own default action is to go through all the elements the DOMActivate event bubbled
through (starting at the target node and going towards the Document node), looking for an
element with an activation behavior (page 26); the first element, in reverse tree order, to have
one, must have its activation behavior executed.
Note: The above doesn't happen for arbitrary synthetic events dispatched by
author script. However, the click() method can be used to make it happen
programmatically.
For certain form controls, this process is complicated further by changes that must happen
around the click event. [WF2]
Note: Most interactive elements have content models that disallow nesting
interactive elements.
3.4.2 Transparent content models
Some elements are described as transparent; they have "transparent" as their content model.
Some elements are described as semi-transparent; this means that part of their content
model is "transparent" but that is not the only part of the content model that must be satisfied.
When a content model includes a part that is "transparent", those parts must not contain
content that would not be conformant if all transparent and semi-transparent elements in the
tree were replaced, in their parent element, by the children in the "transparent" part of their
content model, retaining order.
91
When a transparent or semi-transparent element has no parent, then the part of its content
model that is "transparent" must instead be treated as accepting any flow content (page 89).
3.5 Paragraphs
A paragraph is typically a block of text with one or more sentences that discuss a particular
topic, as in typography, but can also be used for more general thematic grouping. For instance,
an address is also a paragraph, as is a part of a form, a byline, or a stanza in a poem.
Paragraphs in flow content (page 89) are defined relative to what the document looks like
without the ins and del elements complicating matters. Let view be a view of the DOM that
replaces all ins and del elements in the document with their contents. Then, in view, for each
run of phrasing content (page 90) uninterrupted by other types of content, in an element that
accepts content other than phrasing content (page 90), let first be the first node of the run, and
let last be the last node of the run. For each run, a paragraph exists in the original DOM from
immediately before first to immediately after last. (Paragraphs can thus span across ins and del
elements.)
A paragraph (page 92) is also formed by p elements.
Note: The p element can be used to wrap individual paragraphs when there
would otherwise not be any content other than phrasing content to separate
the paragraphs from each other.
In the following example, there are two paragraphs in a section. There is also a header,
which contains phrasing content that is not a paragraph. Note how the comments and
intra-element whitespace do not form paragraphs.
<section>
<h1>Example of paragraphs</h1>
This is the <em>first</em> paragraph in this example.
<p>This is the second.</p>

</section>
The following example takes that markup and puts ins and del elements around some of
the markup to show that the text was changed (though in this case, the changes don't really
make much sense, admittedly). Notice how this example has exactly the same paragraphs
as the previous one, despite the ins and del elements.
<section>
<ins><h1>Example of paragraphs</h1>
This is the <em>first</em> paragraph in</ins> this example<del>.
<p>This is the second.</p></del>

</section>
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3.6 APIs in HTML documents
For HTML documents (page 71), and for HTML elements (page 27) in HTML documents (page
71), certain APIs defined in DOM3 Core become case-insensitive or case-changing, as sometimes
defined in DOM3 Core, and as summarized or required below. [DOM3CORE].
This does not apply to XML documents (page 71) or to elements that are not in the HTML
namespace (page 593) despite being in HTML documents (page 71).
Element.tagName, Node.nodeName, and Node.localName

These attributes return tag names in all uppercase and attribute names in all lowercase,
regardless of the case with which they were created.
Document.createElement()
The canonical form of HTML markup is all-lowercase; thus, this method will lowercase the
argument before creating the requisite element. Also, the element created must be in the
HTML namespace (page 593).
Note: This doesn't apply to Document.createElementNS(). Thus, it is

possible, by passing this last method a tag name in the wrong case, to
create an element that claims to have the tag name of an element defined
in this specification, but doesn't support its interfaces, because it really
has another tag name not accessible from the DOM APIs.
Element.setAttributeNode()
When an Attr node is set on an HTML element (page 27), it must have its name lowercased
before the element is affected.
Note: This doesn't apply to Document.setAttributeNodeNS().
Element.setAttribute()
When an attribute is set on an HTML element (page 27), the name argument must be
lowercased before the element is affected.
Note: This doesn't apply to Document.setAttributeNS().
Document.getElementsByTagName() and Element.getElementsByTagName()

These methods (but not their namespaced counterparts) must compare the given argument
case-insensitively when looking at HTML elements (page 27), and case-sensitively
otherwise.
Note: Thus, in an HTML document (page 71) with nodes in multiple

namespaces, these methods will be both case-sensitive and
case-insensitive at the same time.
93
Document.renameNode()
If the new namespace is the HTML namespace (page 593), then the new qualified name
must be lowercased before the rename takes place.
3.7 Dynamic markup insertion
The document.write() family of methods and the innerHTML family of DOM attributes enable
bz argues that ▶ script authors to dynamically insert markup into the document.
innerHTML should be
called something else
on XML documents and
Because these APIs interact with the parser, their behavior varies depending on whether they
XML elements. Is the are used with HTML documents (page 71) (and the HTML parser (page 518)) or XHTML in XML
sanity worth the
migration pain? documents (page 71) (and the XML parser). The following table cross-references the various
versions of these APIs.
document.write() innerHTML
For documents that are HTML documents document.write() in HTML (page innerHTML in HTML (page
(page 71) 96) 96)
For documents that are XML documents (page document.write() in XML (page innerHTML in XML (page
71) 97) 97)
Regardless of the parsing mode, the document.writeln(...) method must call the
document.write() method with the same argument(s), and then call the document.write()
method with, as its argument, a string consisting of a single line feed character (U+000A).
3.7.1 Controlling the input stream
The open() method comes in several variants with different numbers of arguments.
When called with two or fewer arguments, the method must act as follows:
1. Let type be the value of the first argument, if there is one, or "text/html" otherwise.
2. Let replace be true if there is a second argument and it has the value "replace", and
false otherwise.
3. If the document has an active parser that isn't a script-created parser (page 95), and the
insertion point (page 528) associated with that parser's input stream (page 521) is not
undefined (that is, it does point to somewhere in the input stream), then the method
does nothing. Abort these steps and return the Document object on which the method
was invoked.
Note: This basically causes document.open() to be ignored when it's

called in an inline script found during the parsing of data sent over the
network, while still letting it have an effect when called asynchronously
or on a document that is itself being spoon-fed using these APIs.
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4. onbeforeunload, onunload, reset timers, empty event queue, kill any pending
transactions, XMLHttpRequests, etc
5. If the document has an active parser, then stop that parser, and throw away any
pending content in the input stream. what about if it doesn't, because it's either like a
text/plain, or Atom, or PDF, or XHTML, or image document, or something?
6. Remove all child nodes of the document.
7. Change the document's character encoding (page 75) to UTF-16.
8. Create a new HTML parser (page 518) and associate it with the document. This is a
script-created parser (meaning that it can be closed by the document.open() and
document.close() methods, and that the tokeniser will wait for an explicit call to
document.close() before emitting an end-of-file token).
9. Mark the document as being an HTML document (page 71) (it might already be
so-marked).
10. If type does not have the value "text/html", then act as if the tokeniser had emitted a
start tag token with the tag name "pre", then set the HTML parser (page 518)'s
tokenisation (page 534) stage's content model flag (page 534) to PLAINTEXT.
11. If replace is false, then:
1. Remove all the entries in the browsing context (page 354)'s session history
(page 404) after the current entry (page 405) in its Document's History object
2. Remove any earlier entries that share the same Document
3. Add a new entry just before the last entry that is associated with the text that
was parsed by the previous parser associated with the Document object, as well
as the state of the document at the start of these steps. (This allows the user to
step backwards in the session history to see the page before it was blown away
by the document.open() call.)
12. Finally, set the insertion point (page 528) to point at just before the end of the input
stream (page 521) (which at this point will be empty).
13. Return the Document on which the method was invoked.
We shouldn't hard-code text/plain there. We should do it some other way, e.g. hand off to
the section on content-sniffing and handling of incoming data streams, the part that defines
how this all works when stuff comes over the network.
When called with three or more arguments, the open() method on the HTMLDocument object
must call the open() method on the Window interface of the object returned by the defaultView
95
attribute of the DocumentView interface of the HTMLDocument object, with the same arguments
as the original call to the open() method, and return whatever that method returned. If the
defaultView attribute of the DocumentView interface of the HTMLDocument object is null, then
the method must raise an INVALID_ACCESS_ERR exception.
The close() method must do nothing if there is no script-created parser (page 95) associated
with the document. If there is such a parser, then, when the method is called, the user agent
must insert an explicit "EOF" character (page 528) at the insertion point (page 528) of the
parser's input stream (page 521).
3.7.2 Dynamic markup insertion in HTML
In HTML, the document.write(...) method must act as follows:
1. If the insertion point (page 528) is undefined, the open() method must be called (with
no arguments) on the document object. The insertion point (page 528) will point at just
before the end of the (empty) input stream (page 521).
2. The string consisting of the concatenation of all the arguments to the method must be
inserted into the input stream (page 521) just before the insertion point (page 528).
3. If there is a pending external script (page 302), then the method must now return
without further processing of the input stream (page 521).
4. Otherwise, the tokeniser must process the characters that were inserted, one at a time,
processing resulting tokens as they are emitted, and stopping when the tokeniser
reaches the insertion point or when the processing of the tokeniser is aborted by the
tree construction stage (this can happen if a script start tag token is emitted by the
tokeniser).
Note: If the document.write() method was called from script executing

inline (i.e. executing because the parser parsed a set of script tags),
then this is a reentrant invocation of the parser (page 520).
5. Finally, the method must return.
In HTML, the innerHTML DOM attribute of all HTMLElement and HTMLDocument nodes returns a
serialization of the node's children using the HTML syntax. On setting, it replaces the node's
children with new nodes that result from parsing the given value. The formal definitions follow.
On getting, the innerHTML DOM attribute must return the result of running the HTML fragment
serialization algorithm (page 593) on the node.
On setting, if the node is a document, the innerHTML DOM attribute must run the following
algorithm:
96
1. If the document has an active parser, then stop that parser, and throw away any
pending content in the input stream. what about if it doesn't, because it's either like a
text/plain, or Atom, or PDF, or XHTML, or image document, or something?
2. Remove the children nodes of the Document whose innerHTML attribute is being set.
3. Create a new HTML parser (page 518), in its initial state, and associate it with the
Document node.
4. Place into the input stream (page 521) for the HTML parser (page 518) just created the
string being assigned into the innerHTML attribute.
5. Start the parser and let it run until it has consumed all the characters just inserted into
the input stream. (The Document node will have been populated with elements and a
load event will have fired on its body element (page 76).)
Otherwise, if the node is an element, then setting the innerHTML DOM attribute must cause the
following algorithm to run instead:
1. Invoke the HTML fragment parsing algorithm (page 596), with the element whose
innerHTML attribute is being set as the context element, and the string being assigned
into the innerHTML attribute as the input. Let new children be the result of this
algorithm.
2. Remove the children of the element whose innerHTML attribute is being set.
3. Let target document be the ownerDocument of the Element node whose innerHTML
attribute is being set.
4. Set the ownerDocument of all the nodes in new children to the target document.
5. Append all the new children nodes to the node whose innerHTML attribute is being set,
preserving their order.
Note: script elements inserted using innerHTML do not execute when they are
inserted.
3.7.3 Dynamic markup insertion in XML
In an XML context, the document.write() method must raise an INVALID_ACCESS_ERR

exception.
On the other hand, however, the innerHTML attribute is indeed usable in an XML context.
In an XML context, the innerHTML DOM attribute on HTMLElements must return a string in the
form of an internal general parsed entity, and on HTMLDocuments must return a string in the form
of a document entity. The string returned must be XML namespace-well-formed and must be an
97
isomorphic serialization of all of that node's child nodes, in document order. User agents may
adjust prefixes and namespace declarations in the serialization (and indeed might be forced to
do so in some cases to obtain namespace-well-formed XML). For the innerHTML attribute on
HTMLElement objects, if any of the elements in the serialization are in no namespace, the default
namespace in scope for those elements must be explicitly declared as the empty string. (This
doesn't apply to the innerHTML attribute on HTMLDocument objects.) [XML] [XMLNS]
If any of the following cases are found in the DOM being serialized, the user agent must raise an
INVALID_STATE_ERR exception:
• A Document node with no child element nodes.
• A DocumentType node that has an external subset public identifier or an external subset
system identifier that contains both a U+0022 QUOTATION MARK ('"') and a U+0027
APOSTROPHE ("'").
• A node with a prefix or local name containing a U+003A COLON (":").
• An Attr node, Text node, CDATASection node, Comment node, or

ProcessingInstruction node whose data contains characters that are not matched by
the XML Char production. [XML]
• A CDATASection node whose data contains the string "]]>".
• A Comment node whose data contains two adjacent U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS (-)
characters or ends with such a character.
• A ProcessingInstruction node whose target name is the string "xml" (case

insensitively).
• A ProcessingInstruction node whose target name contains a U+003A COLON (":").
• A ProcessingInstruction node whose data contains the string "?>".
Note: These are the only ways to make a DOM unserializable. The DOM
enforces all the other XML constraints; for example, trying to set an attribute
with a name that contains an equals sign (=) will raised an
INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR exception.
On setting, in an XML context, the innerHTML DOM attribute on HTMLElements and

HTMLDocuments must run the following algorithm:
1. The user agent must create a new XML parser.
2. If the innerHTML attribute is being set on an element, the user agent must feed the
parser just created the string corresponding to the start tag of that element, declaring
all the namespace prefixes that are in scope on that element in the DOM, as well as
declaring the default namespace (if any) that is in scope on that element in the DOM.
3. The user agent must feed the parser just created the string being assigned into the
innerHTML attribute.
98
4. If the innerHTML attribute is being set on an element, the user agent must feed the
parser the string corresponding to the end tag of that element.
5. If the parser found a well-formedness error, the attribute's setter must raise a
SYNTAX_ERR exception and abort these steps.
6. The user agent must remove the children nodes of the node whose innerHTML attribute
is being set.
7. If the attribute is being set on a Document node, let new children be the children of the
document, preserving their order. Otherwise, the attribute is being set on an Element
node; let new children be the children of the document's root element, preserving their
order.
8. If the attribute is being set on a Document node, let target document be that Document
node. Otherwise, the attribute is being set on an Element node; let target document be
the ownerDocument of that Element.
9. Set the ownerDocument of all the nodes in new children to the target document.
10. Append all the new children nodes to the node whose innerHTML attribute is being set,
preserving their order.
Note: script elements inserted using innerHTML do not execute when they are
inserted.
99
4. The elements of HTML
4.1 The root element
4.1.1 The html element
Categories
None.
Contexts in which this element may be used:

As the root element of a document.
Wherever a subdocument fragment is allowed in a compound document.
Content model:
A head element followed by a body element.
Element-specific attributes:
manifest
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The html element represents the root of an HTML document.
The manifest attribute gives the address of the document's application cache (page 387)
manifest (page 387), if there is one. If the attribute is present, the attribute's value must be a
valid URL (page 29).
The manifest attribute only has an effect (page 397) during the early stages of document load.
Changing the attribute dynamically thus has no effect (and thus, no DOM API is provided for this
attribute).
Note: Later base elements don't affect the resolving of relative URLs (page 31)
in manifest attributes, as the attributes are processed before those elements
are seen.
4.2 Document metadata
4.2.1 The head element
Categories
None.

As the first element in an html element.
100
Content model:
One or more elements of metadata content (page 89), of which exactly one is a title
element.
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The head element collects the document's metadata.
4.2.2 The title element
Categories
Metadata content (page 89).

In a head element containing no other title elements.
Content model:
Text.
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The title element represents the document's title or name. Authors should use titles that
identify their documents even when they are used out of context, for example in a user's history
or bookmarks, or in search results. The document's title is often different from its first header,
since the first header does not have to stand alone when taken out of context.
There must be no more than one title element per document.
The title element must not contain any elements.
Here are some examples of appropriate titles, contrasted with the top-level headers that
might be used on those same pages.
<title>Introduction to The Mating Rituals of Bees</title>

...
<h1>Introduction</h1>
<p>This companion guide to the highly successful
<cite>Introduction to Medieval Bee-Keeping</cite> book is...
101
The next page might be a part of the same site. Note how the title describes the subject
matter unambiguously, while the first header assumes the reader knowns what the context
is and therefore won't wonder if the dances are Salsa or Waltz:
<title>Dances used during bee mating rituals</title>

...
<h1>The Dances</h1>
The string to use as the document's title is given by the document.title DOM attribute. User
agents should use the document's title when referring to the document in their user interface.
4.2.3 The base element
Categories

In a head element containing no other base elements.
Content model:
Empty.
href
target
DOM interface:
interface HTMLBaseElement : HTMLElement {

attribute DOMString href;
attribute DOMString target;
};
The base element allows authors to specify the document base URL (page 31) for the purposes
of resolving relative URLs (page 31), and the name of the default browsing context (page 354)
for the purposes of following hyperlinks (page 437).
There must be no more than one base element per document.
A base element must have either an href attribute, a target attribute, or both.
The href content attribute, if specified, must contain a valid URL (page 29).
A base element, if it has an href attribute, must come before any other elements in the tree
that have attributes defined as taking URLs (page 29), except the html element (its manifest
attribute isn't affected by base elements).
Note: If there are multiple base elements with href attributes, all but the first
are ignored.
102
The target attribute, if specified, must contain a valid browsing context name or keyword (page
357). User agents use this name when following hyperlinks (page 437).
A base element, if it has a target attribute, must come before any elements in the tree that
represent hyperlinks (page 436).
Note: If there are multiple base elements with target attributes, all but the
first are ignored.
The href and target DOM attributes must reflect (page 55) the content attributes of the same
name.
4.2.4 The link element
Categories

Where metadata content (page 89) is expected.
In a noscript element that is a child of a head element.
Content model:
Empty.
href
rel
media
hreflang
type
sizes
Also, the title attribute has special semantics on this
element.
DOM interface:
interface HTMLLinkElement : HTMLElement {

attribute boolean disabled;
attribute DOMString rel;
readonly attribute DOMTokenList relList;
attribute DOMString media;
attribute DOMString hreflang;
attribute DOMString type;
attribute DOMString sizes;
};
103
The LinkStyle interface must also be implemented by this element, the styling
processing model (page 115) defines how. [CSSOM]
The link element allows authors to link their document to other resources.
The destination of the link is given by the href attribute, which must be present and must
contain a valid URL (page 29). If the href attribute is absent, then the element does not define a
link.
The type of link indicated (the relationship) is given by the value of the rel attribute, which must
be present, and must have a value that is a set of space-separated tokens (page 52). The
allowed values and their meanings (page 439) are defined in a later section. If the rel attribute
is absent, or if the value used is not allowed according to the definitions in this specification,
then the element does not define a link.
Two categories of links can be created using the link element. Links to external resources
are links to resources that are to be used to augment the current document, and hyperlink
links are links to other documents (page 436). The link types section (page 439) defines
whether a particular link type is an external resource or a hyperlink. One element can create
multiple links (of which some might be external resource links and some might be hyperlinks);
exactly which and how many links are created depends on the keywords given in the rel
attribute. User agents must process the links on a per-link basis, not a per-element basis.
The exact behavior for links to external resources depends on the exact relationship, as defined
for the relevant link type. Some of the attributes control whether or not the external resource is
to be applied (as defined below). For external resources that are represented in the DOM (for
example, style sheets), the DOM representation must be made available even if the resource is
not applied. (However, user agents may opt to only fetch such resources when they are needed,
instead of pro-actively downloading all the external resources that are not applied.)
HTTP semantics must be followed when fetching external resources. (For example, redirects
must be followed and 404 responses must cause the external resource to not be applied.)
Interactive user agents should provide users with a means to follow the hyperlinks (page 437)
created using the link element, somewhere within their user interface. The exact interface is
not defined by this specification, but it should include the following information (obtained from
the element's attributes, again as defined below), in some form or another (possibly simplified),
for each hyperlink created with each link element in the document:
• The relationship between this document and the resource (given by the rel attribute)
• The title of the resource (given by the title attribute).
• The address of the resource (given by the href attribute).
• The language of the resource (given by the hreflang attribute).
• The optimum media for the resource (given by the media attribute).
104
User agents may also include other information, such as the type of the resource (as given by
the type attribute).
Note: Hyperlinks created with the link element and its rel attribute apply to
the whole page. This contrasts with the rel attribute of a and area elements,
which indicates the type of a link whose context is given by the link's location
within the document.
The media attribute says which media the resource applies to. The value must be a valid media
query (page 25). [MQ]
If the link is a hyperlink (page 104) then the media attribute is purely advisory, and describes for
which media the document in question was designed.
However, if the link is an external resource link (page 104), then the media attribute is
prescriptive. The user agent must apply the external resource to views while their state match
the listed media and the other relevant conditions apply, and must not apply them otherwise.
The default, if the media attribute is omitted, is all, meaning that by default links apply to all
media.
The hreflang attribute on the link element has the same semantics as the hreflang attribute
on hyperlink elements (page 437).
The type attribute gives the MIME type of the linked resource. It is purely advisory. The value
must be a valid MIME type, optionally with parameters. [RFC2046]
For external resource links (page 104), the type attribute is used as a hint to user agents so that
they can avoid downloading resources they do not support. If the attribute is present, then the
user agent must assume that the resource is of the given type. If the attribute is omitted, but
the external resource link type has a default type defined, then the user agent must assume
that the resource is of that type. If the UA does not support the given MIME type for the given
link relationship, then the UA should not download the resource; if the UA does support the given
MIME type for the given link relationship, then the UA should download the resource. If the
attribute is omitted, and the external resource link type does not have a default type defined,
but the user agent would fetch the resource if the type was known and supported, then the user
agent should fetch the resource under the assumption that it will be supported.
User agents must not consider the type attribute authoritative — upon fetching the resource,
user agents must not use the type attribute to determine its actual type. Only the actual type
(as defined in the next paragraph) is used to determine whether to apply the resource, not the
aforementioned assumed type.
If the resource is expected to be an image, user agents may apply the image sniffing rules (page
68), with the official type being the type determined from the resource's Content-Type metadata
(page 63), and use the resulting sniffed type of the resource as if it was the actual type.
Otherwise, if the resource is not expected to be an image, or if the user agent opts not to apply
those rules, then the user agent must use the resource's Content-Type metadata (page 63) to
determine the type of the resource. If there is no type metadata, but the external resource link
105
type has a default type defined, then the user agent must assume that the resource is of that
type.
Once the user agent has established the type of the resource, the user agent must apply the
resource if it is of a supported type and the other relevant conditions apply, and must ignore the
resource otherwise.
If a document contains style sheet links labeled as follows:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="A" type="text/plain">

<link rel="stylesheet" href="B" type="text/css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="C">
...then a compliant UA that supported only CSS style sheets would fetch the B and C files,
and skip the A file (since text/plain is not the MIME type for CSS style sheets).
For files B and C, it would then check the actual types returned by the server. For those that
are sent as text/css, it would apply the styles, but for those labeled as text/plain, or any
other type, it would not.
If one the two files was returned without a Content-Type (page 63) metadata, or with a
syntactically incorrect type like Content-Type: "null", then the default type for
stylesheet links would kick in. Since that default type is text/css, the style sheet would
nonetheless be applied.
The title attribute gives the title of the link. With one exception, it is purely advisory. The value
is text. The exception is for style sheet links, where the title attribute defines alternative style
sheet sets (page 116).
Note: The title attribute on link elements differs from the global title
attribute of most other elements in that a link without a title does not inherit
the title of the parent element: it merely has no title.
The sizes attribute is used with the icon link type. The attribute must not be specified on link
elements that do not have a rel attribute that specifies the icon keyword.
Some versions of HTTP defined a Link: header, to be processed like a series of link elements. If
supported, for the purposes of ordering links defined by HTTP headers must be assumed to
come before any links in the document, in the order that they were given in the HTTP entity
header. (URIs in these headers are to be processed and resolved according to the rules given in
HTTP; the rules of this specification don't apply.) [RFC2616] [RFC2068]
The DOM attributes href, rel, media, hreflang, and type, and sizes each must reflect (page
55) the respective content attributes of the same name.
The DOM attribute relList must reflect (page 55) the rel content attribute.
The DOM attribute disabled only applies to style sheet links. When the link element defines a
style sheet link, then the disabled attribute behaves as defined for the alternative style sheets
DOM (page 116). For all other link elements it always return false and does nothing on setting.
106
4.2.5 The meta element
Categories

If the charset attribute is present, or if the element is in the Encoding declaration state
(page 110): as the first element in a head element.
If the http-equiv attribute is present, and the element is not in the Encoding
declaration state (page 110): in a head element.
If the http-equiv attribute is present, and the element is not in the Encoding
declaration state (page 110): in a noscript element that is a child of a head
element.
If the name attribute is present: where metadata content (page 89) is
expected.
Content model:
Empty.
name
http-equiv
content
charset (HTML (page 71) only)
DOM interface:
interface HTMLMetaElement : HTMLElement {

attribute DOMString content;
attribute DOMString name;
attribute DOMString httpEquiv;
};
The meta element represents various kinds of metadata that cannot be expressed using the
title, base, link, style, and script elements.
The meta element can represent document-level metadata with the name attribute, pragma
directives with the http-equiv attribute, and the file's character encoding declaration (page
112) when an HTML document is serialized to string form (e.g. for transmission over the network
or for disk storage) with the charset attribute.
Exactly one of the name, http-equiv, and charset attributes must be specified.
If either name or http-equiv is specified, then the content attribute must also be specified.
Otherwise, it must be omitted.
The charset attribute specifies the character encoding used by the document. This is called a
character encoding declaration (page 112).
107
The charset attribute may be specified in HTML documents (page 24) only, it must not be used
in XML documents (page 24). If the charset attribute is specified, the element must be the first
element in the head element (page 75) of the file.
The content attribute gives the value of the document metadata or pragma directive when the
element is used for those purposes. The allowed values depend on the exact context, as
described in subsequent sections of this specification.
If a meta element has a name attribute, it sets document metadata. Document metadata is
expressed in terms of name/value pairs, the name attribute on the meta element giving the
name, and the content attribute on the same element giving the value. The name specifies
what aspect of metadata is being set; valid names and the meaning of their values are
described in the following sections. If a meta element has no content attribute, then the value
part of the metadata name/value pair is the empty string.
If a meta element has the http-equiv attribute specified, it must be either in a head element or
in a noscript element that itself is in a head element. If a meta element does not have the
http-equiv attribute specified, it must be in a head element.
The DOM attributes name and content must reflect (page 55) the respective content attributes
of the same name. The DOM attribute httpEquiv must reflect (page 55) the content attribute
http-equiv.
4.2.5.1. Standard metadata names
This specification defines a few names for the name attribute of the meta element.
application-name
The value must be a short free-form string that giving the name of the Web application that
the page represents. If the page is not a Web application, the application-name metadata
name must not be used. User agents may use the application name in UI in preference to
the page's title, since the title might include status messages and the like relevant to the
status of the page at a particular moment in time instead of just being the name of the
application.
description
The value must be a free-form string that describes the page. The value must be
appropriate for use in a directory of pages, e.g. in a search engine.
generator
The value must be a free-form string that identifies the software used to generate the
document. This value must not be used on hand-authored pages.
4.2.5.2. Other metadata names
Extensions to the predefined set of metadata names may be registered in the WHATWG
Wiki MetaExtensions page.
108
Anyone is free to edit the WHATWG Wiki MetaExtensions page at any time to add a type. These
new names must be specified with the following information:
Keyword
The actual name being defined. The name should not be confusingly similar to any other
defined name (e.g. differing only in case).
Brief description
A short description of what the metadata name's meaning is, including the format the value
is required to be in.
Link to more details

A link to a more detailed description of the metadata name's semantics and requirements. It
could be another page on the Wiki, or a link to an external page.
Synonyms
A list of other names that have exactly the same processing requirements. Authors should
not use the names defined to be synonyms, they are only intended to allow user agents to
support legacy content.
Status
One of the following:
Proposal
The name has not received wide peer review and approval. Someone has proposed it
and is using it.
Accepted
The name has received wide peer review and approval. It has a specification that
unambiguously defines how to handle pages that use the name, including when they
use it in incorrect ways.
Unendorsed
The metadata name has received wide peer review and it has been found wanting.
Existing pages are using this keyword, but new pages should avoid it. The "brief
description" and "link to more details" entries will give details of what authors should
use instead, if anything.
If a metadata name is added with the "proposal" status and found to be redundant with
existing values, it should be removed and listed as a synonym for the existing value.
Conformance checkers must use the information given on the WHATWG Wiki MetaExtensions
page to establish if a value not explicitly defined in this specification is allowed or not. When an
author uses a new type not defined by either this specification or the Wiki page, conformance
checkers should offer to add the value to the Wiki, with the details described above, with the
"proposal" status.
This specification does not define how new values will get approved. It is expected that the Wiki
will have a community that addresses this.
109
Metadata names whose values are to be URLs (page 29) must not be proposed or accepted.
Links must be represented using the link element, not the meta element.
4.2.5.3. Pragma directives
When the http-equiv attribute is specified on a meta element, the element is a pragma
directive.
The http-equiv attribute is an enumerated attribute (page 54). The following table lists the
keywords defined for this attribute. The states given in the first cell of the rows with keywords
give the states to which those keywords map.
State Keywords
Encoding declaration (page 110) Content-Type
Default style (page 110) default-style
Refresh (page 110) refresh
When a meta element is inserted into the document, if its http-equiv attribute is present and
represents one of the above states, then the user agent must run the algorithm appropriate for
that state, as described in the following list:
Encoding declaration state

The Encoding declaration state's (page 110) user agent requirements are all handled by the
parsing section of the specification. The state is just an alternative form of setting the
charset attribute: it is a character encoding declaration (page 112).
For meta elements in the Encoding declaration state (page 110), the content attribute must
have a value that is a case-insensitive match of a string that consists of the literal string
"text/html;", optionally followed by any number of space characters (page 36), followed
by the literal string "charset=", followed by the character encoding name of the character
encoding declaration (page 112).
If the document contains a meta element in the Encoding declaration state (page 110) then
that element must be the first element in the document's head element, and the document
must not contain a meta element with the charset attribute present.
The Encoding declaration state (page 110) may be used in HTML documents (page 24) only,
elements in that state must not be used in XML documents (page 24).
Default style state
1. ...
Refresh state
1. If another meta element in the Refresh state (page 110) has already been
successfully processed (i.e. when it was inserted the user agent processed it and
reached the last step of this list of steps), then abort these steps.
110
2. If the meta element has no content attribute, or if that attribute's value is the
empty string, then abort these steps.
3. Let input be the value of the element's content attribute.
4. Let position point at the first character of input.
5. Skip whitespace (page 37).
6. Collect a sequence of characters (page 36) in the range U+0030 DIGIT ZERO to
U+0039 DIGIT NINE, and parse the resulting string using the rules for parsing
non-negative integers (page 37). If the sequence of characters collected is the
empty string, then no number will have been parsed; abort these steps. Otherwise,
let time be the parsed number.
7. Collect a sequence of characters (page 36) in the range U+0030 DIGIT ZERO to
U+0039 DIGIT NINE and U+002E FULL STOP ("."). Ignore any collected characters.
9. Let url be the address of the current page.
10. If the character in input pointed to by position is a U+003B SEMICOLON (";"), then
advance position to the next character. Otherwise, jump to the last step.
12. If the character in input pointed to by position is one of U+0055 LATIN CAPITAL
LETTER U or U+0075 LATIN SMALL LETTER U, then advance position to the next
character. Otherwise, jump to the last step.
13. If the character in input pointed to by position is one of U+0052 LATIN CAPITAL
LETTER R or U+0072 LATIN SMALL LETTER R, then advance position to the next
14. If the character in input pointed to by position is one of U+004C LATIN CAPITAL
LETTER L or U+006C LATIN SMALL LETTER L, then advance position to the next
16. If the character in input pointed to by position is a U+003D EQUALS SIGN ("="), then
advance position to the next character. Otherwise, jump to the last step.
18. Let url be equal to the substring of input from the character at position to the end of
the string.
19. Strip any trailing space characters (page 36) from the end of url.
111
20. Strip any U+0009 CHARACTER TABULATION, U+000A LINE FEED (LF), and U+000D
CARRIAGE RETURN (CR) characters from url.
21. Resolve (page 31) the url value to an absolute URL (page 33). (For the purposes of
determining the base URL (page 31), the url value comes from the value of a
content attribute of the meta element.) If this fails, abort these steps.
22. Perform one or more of the following steps:
• Set a timer so that in time seconds, adjusted to take into account user or
user agent preferences, if the user has not canceled the redirect, the user
agent navigates (page 410) the document's browsing context to url, with
replacement enabled (page 414), and with the document's browsing context
as the source browsing context (page 410).
• Provide the user with an interface that, when selected, navigates a browsing
context (page 354) to url, with the document's browsing context as the
source browsing context (page 410).
• Do nothing.
In addition, the user agent may, as with anything, inform the user of any and all
aspects of its operation, including the state of any timers, the destinations of any
timed redirects, and so forth.
For meta elements in the Refresh state (page 110), the content attribute must have a value
consisting either of:
• just a valid non-negative integer (page 37), or
• a valid non-negative integer (page 37), followed by a U+003B SEMICOLON (;),

followed by one or more space characters (page 36), followed by either a U+0055
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U or a U+0075 LATIN SMALL LETTER U, a U+0052 LATIN
CAPITAL LETTER R or a U+0072 LATIN SMALL LETTER R, a U+004C LATIN CAPITAL
LETTER L or a U+006C LATIN SMALL LETTER L, a U+003D EQUALS SIGN (=), and
then a valid URL (page 29).
In the former case, the integer represents a number of seconds before the page is to be
reloaded; in the latter case the integer represents a number of seconds before the page is
to be replaced by the page at the given URL (page 29).
There must not be more than one meta element with any particular state in the document at a
time.
4.2.5.4. Specifying the document's character encoding
A character encoding declaration is a mechanism by which the character encoding used to

store or transmit a document is specified.
The following restrictions apply to character encoding declarations:
112
• The character encoding name given must be the name of the character encoding used
to serialize the file.
• The value must be a valid character encoding name, and must be the preferred name
for that encoding. [IANACHARSET]
• The character encoding declaration must be serialized without the use of character
references (page 517) or character escapes of any kind.
If the document does not start with a BOM, and if its encoding is not explicitly given by
Content-Type metadata (page 63), then the character encoding used must be an
ASCII-compatible character encoding (page 113), and, in addition, if that encoding isn't US-ASCII
itself, then the encoding must be specified using a meta element with a charset attribute or a
meta element in the Encoding declaration state (page 110).
If the document contains a meta element with a charset attribute or a meta element in the
Encoding declaration state (page 110), then the character encoding used must be an
ASCII-compatible character encoding (page 113).
An ASCII-compatible character encoding is one that is a superset of US-ASCII (specifically,

ANSI_X3.4-1968) for bytes in the set 0x09, 0x0A, 0x0C, 0x0D, 0x20 - 0x22, 0x26, 0x27, 0x2C -
0x3F, 0x41 - 0x5A, and 0x61 - 0x7A.
Authors should not use JIS_X0212-1990, x-JIS0208, and encodings based on EBCDIC. Authors
should not use UTF-32. Authors must not use the CESU-8, UTF-7, BOCU-1 and SCSU encodings.
[CESU8] [UTF7] [BOCU1] [SCSU]
Authors are encouraged to use UTF-8. Conformance checkers may advise against authors using
legacy encodings.
In XHTML, the XML declaration should be used for inline character encoding information, if
necessary.
4.2.6 The style element
Categories
If the scoped attribute is present: flow content (page 89).

If the scoped attribute is absent: where metadata content (page 89) is expected.
If the scoped attribute is absent: in a noscript element that is a child of a head
element.
If the scoped attribute is present: where flow content (page 89) is expected, but
before any sibling elements other than style elements and before any text
nodes other than inter-element whitespace (page 88).
Content model:
Depends on the value of the type attribute.
113
media
type
scoped
Also, the title attribute has special semantics on this element.
DOM interface:
interface HTMLStyleElement : HTMLElement {

attribute boolean scoped;
};
The LinkStyle interface must also be implemented by this element, the styling
processing model (page 115) defines how. [CSSOM]
The style element allows authors to embed style information in their documents. The style
element is one of several inputs to the styling processing model (page 115).
If the type attribute is given, it must contain a valid MIME type, optionally with parameters, that
designates a styling language. [RFC2046] If the attribute is absent, the type defaults to text/
css. [RFC2138]
When examining types to determine if they support the language, user agents must not ignore
unknown MIME parameters — types with unknown parameters must be assumed to be
unsupported.
The media attribute says which media the styles apply to. The value must be a valid media
query (page 25). [MQ] User agents must apply the styles to views while their state match the
listed media, and must not apply them otherwise. [DOM3VIEWS]
The default, if the media attribute is omitted, is all, meaning that by default styles apply to all
media.
The scoped attribute is a boolean attribute (page 37). If the attribute is present, then the user
agent must apply the specified style information only to the style element's parent element (if
any), and that element's child nodes. Otherwise, the specified styles must, if applied, be applied
to the entire document.
The title attribute on style elements defines alternative style sheet sets (page 116). If the
style element has no title attribute, then it has no title; the title attribute of ancestors does
not apply to the style element.
114
Note: The title attribute on style elements, like the title attribute on link
elements, differs from the global title attribute in that a style block without
a title does not inherit the title of the parent element: it merely has no title.
All descendant elements must be processed, according to their semantics, before the style
element itself is evaluated. For styling languages that consist of pure text, user agents must
evaluate style elements by passing the concatenation of the contents of all the text nodes
(page 28) that are direct children of the style element (not any other nodes such as comments
or elements), in tree order (page 28), to the style system. For XML-based styling languages, user
agents must pass all the children nodes of the style element to the style system.
Note: This specification does not specify a style system, but CSS is expected
to be supported by most Web browsers. [CSS21]
The media, type and scoped DOM attributes must reflect (page 55) the respective content
attributes of the same name.
The DOM disabled attribute behaves as defined for the alternative style sheets DOM (page
116).
4.2.7 Styling
The link and style elements can provide styling information for the user agent to use when
rendering the document. The DOM Styling specification specifies what styling information is to
be used by the user agent and how it is to be used. [CSSOM]
The style and link elements implement the LinkStyle interface. [CSSOM]
For style elements, if the user agent does not support the specified styling language, then the
sheet attribute of the element's LinkStyle interface must return null. Similarly, link elements
that do not represent external resource links that contribute to the styling processing model
(page 447) (i.e. that do not have a stylesheet keyword in their rel attribute), and link
elements whose specified resource has not yet been downloaded, or is not in a supported styling
language, must have their LinkStyle interface's sheet attribute return null.
Otherwise, the LinkStyle interface's sheet attribute must return a StyleSheet object with the
attributes implemented as follows: [CSSOM]
The content type (type DOM attribute)

The content type must be the same as the style's specified type. For style elements, this is
the same as the type content attribute's value, or text/css if that is omitted. For link
elements, this is the Content-Type metadata of the specified resource (page 63).
The location (href DOM attribute)

For link elements, the location must be the result of resolving (page 31) the URL (page 29)
given by the element's href content attribute, or the empty string if that fails. For style
elements, there is no location.
115
The intended destination media for style information (media DOM attribute)
The media must be the same as the value of the element's media content attribute.
The style sheet title (title DOM attribute)

The title must be the same as the value of the element's title content attribute. If the
attribute is absent, then the style sheet does not have a title. The title is used for defining
alternative style sheet sets.
The disabled DOM attribute on link and style elements must return false and do nothing on
setting, if the sheet attribute of their LinkStyle interface is null. Otherwise, it must return the
value of the StyleSheet interface's disabled attribute on getting, and forward the new value to
that same attribute on setting.
4.3 Sections
Some elements, for example address elements, are scoped to their nearest ancestor sectioning
content (page 90). For such elements x, the elements that apply to a sectioning content (page
90) element e are all the x elements whose nearest sectioning content (page 90) ancestor is e.
4.3.1 The body element
Categories
Sectioning content (page 90).

As the second element in an html element.
Content model:
Flow content (page 89).
None.
DOM interface:
interface HTMLBodyElement : HTMLElement {};
The body element represents the main content of the document.
In conforming documents, there is only one body element. The document.body DOM attribute
provides scripts with easy access to a document's body element.
Note: Some DOM operations (for example, parts of the drag and drop (page
464) model) are defined in terms of "the body element (page 76)". This refers
to a particular element in the DOM, as per the definition of the term, and not
any arbitrary body element.
116
4.3.2 The section element
Categories

Where flow content (page 89) is expected.
Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The section element represents a generic document or application section. A section, in this
context, is a thematic grouping of content, typically with a header, possibly with a footer.
Examples of sections would be chapters, the various tabbed pages in a tabbed dialog box,
or the numbered sections of a thesis. A Web site's home page could be split into sections for
an introduction, news items, contact information.
4.3.3 The nav element
Categories

Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The nav element represents a section of a page that links to other pages or to parts within the
page: a section with navigation links. Not all groups of links on a page need to be in a nav
element — only sections that consist of primary navigation blocks are appropriate for the nav
element. In particular, it is common for footers to have a list of links to various key parts of a
site, but the footer element is more appropriate in such cases.
117
In the following example, the page has several places where links are present, but only one
of those places is considered a navigation section.
<body>
<header>
<h1>Wake up sheeple!</h1>
<p><a href="news.html">News</a> -
<a href="blog.html">Blog</a> -
<a href="forums.html">Forums</a></p>
</header>
<nav>
<h1>Navigation</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="articles.html">Index of all articles</a><li>
<li><a href="today.html">Things sheeple need to wake up for
today</a><li>
<li><a href="successes.html">Sheeple we have managed to wake</a><li>
</ul>
</nav>
<article>
<p>...page content would be here...</p>
</article>
<footer>
<p>Copyright © 2006 The Example Company</p>
<p><a href="about.html">About</a> -
<a href="policy.html">Privacy Policy</a> -
<a href="contact.html">Contact Us</a></p>
</footer>
</body>
4.3.4 The article element
Categories

Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
118
The article element represents a section of a page that consists of a composition that forms an
independent part of a document, page, or site. This could be a forum post, a magazine or
newspaper article, a Web log entry, a user-submitted comment, or any other independent item
of content.
Note: An article element is "independent" in that its contents could stand

alone, for example in syndication. However, the element is still associated
with its ancestors; for instance, contact information that applies (page 116) to
a parent body element still covers the article as well.
When article elements are nested, the inner article elements represent articles that are in
principle related to the contents of the outer article. For instance, a Web log entry on a site that
accepts user-submitted comments could represent the comments as article elements nested
within the article element for the Web log entry.
Author information associated with an article element (q.v. the address element) does not
apply to nested article elements.
4.3.5 The aside element
Categories

Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The aside element represents a section of a page that consists of content that is tangentially
related to the content around the aside element, and which could be considered separate from
that content. Such sections are often represented as sidebars in printed typography.
The following example shows how an aside is used to mark up background material on
Switzerland in a much longer news story on Europe.
<aside>
<h1>Switzerland</h1>
<p>Switzerland, a land-locked country in the middle of geographic
Europe, has not joined the geopolitical European Union, though it is
a signatory to a number of European treaties.</p>
</aside>
119
The following example shows how an aside is used to mark up a pull quote in a longer
article.
...
<p>He later joined a large company, continuing on the same work.

<q>I love my job. People ask me what I do for fun when I'm not at
work. But I'm paid to do my hobby, so I never know what to
answer. Some people wonder what they would do if they didn't have to
work... but I know what I would do, because I was unemployed for a
year, and I filled that time doing exactly what I do
now.</q></p>
<aside>
<q> People ask me what I do for fun when I'm not at work. But I'm
paid to do my hobby, so I never know what to answer. </q>
</aside>
<p>Of course his work — or should that be hobby? —

isn't his only passion. He also enjoys other pleasures.</p>
...
4.3.6 The h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, and h6 elements
Categories
Heading content (page 90).

Content model:
Phrasing content (page 90).
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
These elements define headers for their sections.
The semantics and meaning of these elements are defined in the section on headings and
sections (page 124).
120
These elements have a rank given by the number in their name. The h1 element is said to have
the highest rank, the h6 element has the lowest rank, and two elements with the same name
have equal rank.
4.3.7 The header element
Categories
Heading content (page 90).

Content model:
Flow content (page 89), including at least one descendant that is heading content (page
90), but no sectioning content (page 90) descendants, no header element descendants,
and no footer element descendants.
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The header element represents the header of a section. The element is typically used to group a
set of h1–h6 elements to mark up a page's title with its subtitle or tagline. However, header
elements may contain more than just the section's headings and subheadings — for example it
would be reasonable for the header to include version history information.
For the purposes of document summaries, outlines, and the like, header elements are
equivalent to the highest ranked (page 121) h1–h6 element descendant of the header element
(the first such element if there are multiple elements with that rank (page 121)).
Other heading elements in the header element indicate subheadings or subtitles.
The rank (page 121) of a header element is the same as for an h1 element (the highest rank).
The section on headings and sections (page 124) defines how header elements are assigned to
individual sections.
Here are some examples of valid headers. In each case, the emphasised text represents the
text that would be used as the header in an application extracting header data and ignoring
subheadings.
<header>
<h1>The reality dysfunction</h1>
<h2>Space is not the only void</h2>
</header>
<header>
<h1>Dr. Strangelove</h1>
121
<h2>Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb</h2>
</header>
<header>
<p>Welcome to...</p>
<h1>Voidwars!</h1>
</header>
<header>
<h1>Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.2</h1>
<h2>W3C Working Draft 27 October 2004</h2>
<dl>
<dt>This version:</dt>
<dd><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-SVG12-20041027/
">http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-SVG12-20041027/</a></dd>
<dt>Previous version:</dt>
<dd><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-SVG12-20040510/
">http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-SVG12-20040510/</a></dd>
<dt>Latest version of SVG 1.2:</dt>
<dd><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG12/">http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG12/
</a></dd>
<dt>Latest SVG Recommendation:</dt>
<dd><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/">http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/
</a></dd>
<dt>Editor:</dt>
<dd>Dean Jackson, W3C, <a href="mailto:dean@w3.org">dean@w3.org</a></dd>
<dt>Authors:</dt>
<dd>See <a href="#authors">Author List</a></dd>
</dl>
<p class="copyright"><a href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/
ipr-notic ...
</header>
4.3.8 The footer element
Categories

Content model:
Flow content (page 89), but with no heading content (page 90) descendants, no
sectioning content (page 90) descendants, and no footer element descendants.
None.
122
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The footer element represents the footer for the section it applies (page 116) to. A footer
typically contains information about its section such as who wrote it, links to related documents,
copyright data, and the like.
Contact information for the section given in a footer should be marked up using the address
element.
Footers don't necessarily have to appear at the end of a section, though they usually do.
Here is a page with two footers, one at the top and one at the bottom, with the same
content:
<body>
<footer><a href="../">Back to index...</a></footer>
<h1>Lorem ipsum</h1>
<p>A dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod
tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim
veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex
ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in
voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla
pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in
culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.</p>
<footer><a href="../">Back to index...</a></footer>
</body>
4.3.9 The address element
Categories

Content model:
Flow content (page 89), but with no heading content (page 90) descendants, no
sectioning content (page 90) descendants, no footer element descendants, and no
address element descendants.
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
123
The address element represents the contact information for the section it applies (page 116) to.
If it applies to the body element (page 76), then it instead applies to the document as a whole.
For example, a page at the W3C Web site related to HTML might include the following
contact information:
<ADDRESS>
<A href="../People/Raggett/">Dave Raggett</A>,
<A href="../People/Arnaud/">Arnaud Le Hors</A>,
contact persons for the <A href="Activity">W3C HTML Activity</A>
</ADDRESS>
The address element must not be used to represent arbitrary addresses (e.g. postal addresses),
unless those addresses are contact information for the section. (The p element is the
appropriate element for marking up such addresses.)
The address element must not contain information other than contact information.
For example, the following is non-conforming use of the address element:
<ADDRESS>Last Modified: 1999/12/24 23:37:50</ADDRESS>
Typically, the address element would be included with other information in a footer element.
To determine the contact information for a sectioning content (page 90) element (such as a
document's body element, which would give the contact information for the page), UAs must
collect all the address elements that apply (page 116) to that sectioning content (page 90)
element and its ancestor sectioning content (page 90) elements. The contact information is the
collection of all the information given by those elements.
Note: Contact information for one sectioning content (page 90) element, e.g.
an aside element, does not apply to its ancestor elements, e.g. the page's
body.
4.3.10 Headings and sections
The h1–h6 elements and the header element are headings.
The first element of heading content (page 90) in an element of sectioning content (page 90)
gives the header for that section. Subsequent headers of equal or higher rank (page 121) start
new (implied) sections, headers of lower rank (page 121) start subsections that are part of the
previous one.
Sectioning content (page 90) elements are always considered subsections of their nearest
ancestor element of sectioning content (page 90), regardless of what implied sections other
headings may have created.
124
Certain elements are said to be sectioning roots, including blockquote and td elements.
These elements can have their own outlines, but the sections and headers inside these elements
do not contribute to the outlines of their ancestors.
For the following fragment:
<body>
<h1>Foo</h1>
<h2>Bar</h2>
<blockquote>
<h3>Bla</h3>
</blockquote>
<p>Baz</p>
<h2>Quux</h2>
<section>
<h3>Thud</h3>
</section>
<p>Grunt</p>
</body>
...the structure would be:
1. Foo (heading of explicit body section, containing the "Grunt" paragraph)

1. Bar (heading starting implied section, containing a block quote and the
"Baz" paragraph)
2. Quux (heading starting implied section)
3. Thud (heading of explicit section section)
Notice how the section ends the earlier implicit section so that a later paragraph ("Grunt")
is back at the top level.
Sections may contain headers of any rank (page 121), but authors are strongly encouraged to
either use only h1 elements, or to use elements of the appropriate rank (page 121) for the
section's nesting level.
Authors are also encouraged to explicitly wrap sections in elements of sectioning content (page
90), instead of relying on the implicit sections generated by having multiple heading in one
element of sectioning content (page 90).
For example, the following is correct:
<body>
<h4>Apples</h4>
<p>Apples are fruit.</p>
<section>
<h2>Taste</h2>
<p>They taste lovely.</p>
<h6>Sweet</h6>
<p>Red apples are sweeter than green ones.</p>
<h1>Color</h1>
<p>Apples come in various colors.</p>
125
</section>
</body>
However, the same document would be more clearly expressed as:
<body>
<h1>Apples</h1>
<p>Apples are fruit.</p>
<section>
<h2>Taste</h2>
<p>They taste lovely.</p>
<section>
<h3>Sweet</h3>
<p>Red apples are sweeter than green ones.</p>
</section>
</section>
<section>
<h2>Color</h2>
<p>Apples come in various colors.</p>
</section>
</body>
Both of the documents above are semantically identical and would produce the same outline
in compliant user agents.
4.3.10.1. Creating an outline
This section defines an algorithm for creating an outline for a sectioning content (page 90)
element or a sectioning root (page 125) element. It is defined in terms of a walk over the nodes
of a DOM tree, in tree order, with each node being visited when it is entered and when it is
exited during the walk.
The outline for a sectioning content (page 90) element or a sectioning root (page 125) element
consists of a list of one or more potentially nested sections (page 126). A section is a container
that corresponds to some nodes in the original DOM tree. Each section can have one heading
associated with it, and can contain any number of further nested sections. The algorithm for the
outline also associates each node in the DOM tree with a particular section and potentially a
heading. (The sections in the outline aren't section elements, though some may correspond to
such elements — they are merely conceptual sections.)
The following markup fragment:
<body>
<h1>A</h1>
<p>B</p>
<h2>C</h2>
<p>D</p>
<h2>E</h2>
126
<p>F</p>
</body>
...results in the following outline being created for the body node (and thus the entire
document):
1. Section created for body node.

Associated with heading "A".
Also associated with paragraph "B".
Nested sections:
1. Section implied for first h2 element.

Associated with heading "C".
Also associated with paragraph "D".
No nested sections.
2. Section implied for second h2 element.
Associated with heading "E".
Also associated with paragraph "F".
No nested sections.
The algorithm that must be followed during a walk of a DOM subtree rooted at a sectioning
content (page 90) element or a sectioning root (page 125) element to determine that element's
outline (page 126) is as follows:
1. Let current outlinee be null. (It holds the element whose outline (page 126) is being
created.)
2. Let current section be null. (It holds a pointer to a section (page 126), so that elements
in the DOM can all be associated with a section.)
3. Create a stack to hold elements, which is used to handle nesting. Initialize this stack to
empty.
4. As you walk over the DOM in tree order (page 28), trigger the first relevant step below
for each element as you enter and exit it.
↪ If the top of the stack is an element, and you are exiting that element
Note: The element being exited is a heading content (page 90)

element.
Pop that element from the stack.
↪ If the top of the stack is a heading content (page 90) element

Do nothing.
↪ When entering a sectioning content (page 90) element or a sectioning root

(page 125) element
If current outlinee is not null, push current outlinee onto the stack.
Let current outlinee be the element that is being entered.
127
Let current section be a newly created section (page 126) for the current
outlinee element.
Let there be a new outline (page 126) for the new current outlinee, initialized
with just the new current section as the only section (page 126) in the outline.
↪ When exiting a sectioning content (page 90) element, if the stack is not
empty
Pop the top element from the stack, and let the current outlinee be that
element.
Let current section be the last section in the outline (page 126) of the current
outlinee element.
Append the outline (page 126) of the sectioning content (page 90) element
being exited to the current section. (This does not change which section is the
last section in the outline (page 126).)
↪ When exiting a sectioning root (page 125) element, if the stack is not
empty
Run these steps:
1. Pop the top element from the stack, and let the current outlinee be that
element.
2. Let current section be the last section in the outline (page 126) of the
current outlinee element.
3. Finding the deepest child: If current section has no child sections, stop
these steps.
4. Let current section be the last child section (page 126) of the current
current section.
5. Go back to the substep labeled finding the deepest child.
↪ When exiting a sectioning content (page 90) element or a sectioning root

(page 125) element
Note: The current outlinee is the element being exited.
Let current section be the first section (page 126) in the outline (page 126) of
the current outlinee element.
Skip to the next step in the overall set of steps. (The walk is over.)
↪ If the current outlinee is null.

Do nothing.
128
↪ When entering a heading content (page 90) element
If the current section has no heading, let the element being entered be the
heading for the current section.
Otherwise, if the element being entered has a rank (page 121) equal to or
greater than the heading of the last section of the outline (page 126) of the
current outlinee, then create a new section (page 126) and append it to the
outline (page 126) of the current outlinee element, so that this new section is
the new last section of that outline. Let current section be that new section. Let
the element being entered be the new heading for the current section.
Otherwise, run these substeps:
1. Let candidate section be current section.
2. If the element being entered has a rank (page 121) lower than the rank
(page 121) of the heading of the candidate section, then create a new
section (page 126), and append it to candidate section. (This does not
change which section is the last section in the outline.) Let current
section be this new section. Let the element being entered be the new
heading for the current section. Abort these substeps.
3. Let new candidate section be the section (page 126) that contains
candidate section in the outline (page 126) of current outlinee.
4. Let candidate section be new candidate section.
5. Return to step 2.
Push the element being entered onto the stack. (This causes the algorithm to
skip any descendants of the element.)
Note: Recall that h1 has the highest rank, and h6 has the lowest
rank.
↪ Otherwise
Do nothing.
In addition, whenever you exit a node, after doing the steps above, if current section is
not null, associate the node with the section (page 126) current section.
5. If the current outlinee is null, then there was no sectioning content (page 90) element or
sectioning root (page 125) element in the DOM. There is no outline (page 126). Abort
these steps.
6. Associate any nodes that were not associated a section (page 126) in the steps above
with current outlinee as their section.
7. Associate all nodes with the heading of the section (page 126) with which they are
associated, if any.
129
8. If current outlinee is the body element (page 76), then the outline created for that
element is the outline (page 126) of the entire document.
The tree of sections created by the algorithm above, or a proper subset thereof, must be used
when generating document outlines, for example when generating tables of contents.
When creating an interactive table of contents, entries should jump the user to the relevant
sectioning content (page 90) element, if the section (page 126) was created for a real element in
the original document, or to the relevant heading content (page 90) element, if the section
(page 126) in the tree was generated for a heading in the above process.
Note: Selecting the first section (page 126) of the document therefore always
takes the user to the top of the document, regardless of where the first
header in the body is to be found.
The following JavaScript function shows how the tree walk could be
implemented. The root argument is the root of the tree to walk, and the enter
and exit arguments are callbacks that are called with the nodes as they are
entered and exited. [ECMA262]
function (root, enter, exit) {

var node = root;
start: do while (node) {
enter(node);
if (node.firstChild) {
node = node.firstChild;
continue start;
}
while (node) {
exit(node);
if (node.nextSibling) {
node = node.nextSibling;
continue start;
}
if (node == root)
node = null;
else
node = node.parentNode;
}
}
}
4.3.10.2. Distinguishing site-wide headings from page headings
Given the outline (page 126) of a document, but ignoring any sections created for nav and aside
elements, and any of their descendants, if the only root of the tree is the body element (page
76)'s section (page 126), and it has only a single subsection which is created by an article
130
element, then the heading of the body element (page 76) should be assumed to be a site-wide
heading, and the heading of the article element should be assumed to be the page's heading.
If a page starts with a heading that is common to the whole site, the document must be
authored such that, in the document's outline (page 126), ignoring any sections created for nav
and aside elements and any of their descendants, the tree has only one root section (page
126), the body element (page 76)'s section, its heading is the site-wide heading, the body
element (page 76) has just one subsection, that subsection is created by an article element,
and that article's heading is the page heading.
If a page does not contain a site-wide heading, then the page must be authored such that, in the
document's outline (page 126), ignoring any sections created for nav and aside elements and
any of their descendants, either the body element (page 76) has no subsections, or it has more
than one subsection, or it has a single subsection but that subsection is not created by an
article element, or there is more than one section (page 126) at the root of the outline.
Note: Conceptually, a site is thus a document with many articles — when those
articles are split into many pages, the heading of the original single page
becomes the heading of the site, repeated on every page.
4.4 Grouping content
4.4.1 The p element
Categories

Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The p element represents a paragraph (page 92).
The following examples are conforming HTML fragments:
<p>The little kitten gently seated himself on a piece of

carpet. Later in his life, this would be referred to as the time the
cat sat on the mat.</p>
<fieldset>
<legend>Personal information</legend>
<p>
131
<label>Name: <input name="n"></label>
<label><input name="anon" type="checkbox"> Hide from other
users</label>
</p>
<p><label>Address: <textarea name="a"></textarea></label></p>
</fieldset>
<p>There was once an example from Femley,<br>
Whose markup was of dubious quality.<br>
The validator complained,<br>
So the author was pained,<br>
To move the error from the markup to the rhyming.</p>
The p element should not be used when a more specific element is more appropriate.
The following example is technically correct:
<section>

<p>Last modified: 2001-04-23</p>
<p>Author: fred@example.com</p>
</section>
However, it would be better marked-up as:
<section>

<footer>Last modified: 2001-04-23</footer>
<address>Author: fred@example.com</address>
</section>
Or:
<section>

<footer>
<p>Last modified: 2001-04-23</p>
<address>Author: fred@example.com</address>
</footer>
</section>
4.4.2 The hr element
Categories

132
Content model:
Empty.
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The hr element represents a paragraph (page 92)-level thematic break, e.g. a scene change in a
story, or a transition to another topic within a section of a reference book.
4.4.3 The br element
Categories

Where phrasing content (page 90) is expected.
Content model:
Empty.
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The br element represents a line break.
br elements must be empty. Any content inside br elements must not be considered part of the
surrounding text.
br elements must be used only for line breaks that are actually part of the content, as in poems
or addresses.
The following example is correct usage of the br element:
<p>P. Sherman<br>
42 Wallaby Way<br>
Sydney</p>
br elements must not be used for separating thematic groups in a paragraph.
The following examples are non-conforming, as they abuse the br element:
<p><a ...>34 comments.</a><br>

<a ...>Add a comment.<a></p>
133
<p>Name: <input name="name"><br>
Address: <input name="address"></p>
Here are alternatives to the above, which are correct:
<p><a ...>34 comments.</a></p>

<p><a ...>Add a comment.<a></p>
<p>Name: <input name="name"></p>
<p>Address: <input name="address"></p>
If a paragraph (page 92) consists of nothing but a single br element, it represents a placeholder
blank line (e.g. as in a template). Such blank lines must not be used for presentation purposes.
4.4.4 The pre element
Categories

Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The pre element represents a block of preformatted text, in which structure is represented by
typographic conventions rather than by elements.
Note: In the HTML serialization, a leading newline character immediately

following the pre element start tag is stripped.
Some examples of cases where the pre element could be used:
• Including an e-mail, with paragraphs indicated by blank lines, lists indicated by lines
prefixed with a bullet, and so on.
• Including fragments of computer code, with structure indicated according to the

conventions of that language.
• Displaying ASCII art.
To represent a block of computer code, the pre element can be used with a code element; to
represent a block of computer output the pre element can be used with a samp element.
134
Similarly, the kbd element can be used within a pre element to indicate text that the user is to
enter.
In the following snippet, a sample of computer code is presented.
<p>This is the <code>Panel</code> constructor:</p>

<pre><code>function Panel(element, canClose, closeHandler) {
this.element = element;
this.canClose = canClose;
this.closeHandler = function () { if (closeHandler) closeHandler() };
}</code></pre>
In the following snippet, samp and kbd elements are mixed in the contents of a pre element
to show a session of Zork I.
<pre><samp>You are in an open field west of a big white house with a

boarded
front door.
There is a small mailbox here.
></samp> <kbd>open mailbox</kbd>
<samp>Opening the mailbox reveals:

A leaflet.
></samp></pre>
The following shows a contemporary poem that uses the pre element to preserve its
unusual formatting, which forms an intrinsic part of the poem itself.
<pre> maxling
it is with a heart
heavy
that i admit loss of a feline

so loved
a friend lost to the

unknown
(night)
~cdr 11dec07</pre>
4.4.5 The dialog element
Categories
135
Content model:
Zero or more pairs of one dt element followed by one dd element.
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The dialog element represents a conversation.
Each part of the conversation must have an explicit talker (or speaker) given by a dt element,
and a discourse (or quote) given by a dd element.
This example demonstrates this using an extract from Abbot and Costello's famous sketch,
Who's on first:
<dialog>
<dt> Costello
<dd> Look, you gotta first baseman?
<dt> Abbott
<dd> Certainly.
<dt> Costello
<dd> Who's playing first?
<dt> Abbott
<dd> That's right.
<dt> Costello
<dd> When you pay off the first baseman every month, who gets the money?
<dt> Abbott
<dd> Every dollar of it.
</dialog>
Note: Text in a dt element in a dialog element is implicitly the source of the

text given in the following dd element, and the contents of the dd element are
implicitly a quote from that speaker. There is thus no need to include cite, q,
or blockquote elements in this markup. Indeed, a q element inside a dd element
in a conversation would actually imply the people talking were themselves
quoting another work. See the cite, q, and blockquote elements for other ways
to cite or quote.
136
4.4.6 The blockquote element
Categories
Sectioning root (page 125).

Content model:
cite
DOM interface:
interface HTMLQuoteElement : HTMLElement {

attribute DOMString cite;
};
Note: The HTMLQuoteElement interface is also used by the q element.
The blockquote element represents a section that is quoted from another source.
Content inside a blockquote must be quoted from another source, whose address, if it has one,
should be cited in the cite attribute.
If the cite attribute is present, it must be a valid URL (page 29). User agents should allow users
to follow such citation links.
If a blockquote element is preceded or followed (page 88) by a single paragraph (page 92) that
contains a single cite element and that is itself not preceded or followed (page 88) by another
blockquote element and does not itself have a q element descendant, then, the title of the work
given by that cite element gives the source of the quotation contained in the blockquote
element.
The cite DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the element's cite content attribute.
Note: The best way to represent a conversation is not with the cite and
blockquote elements, but with the dialog element.
4.4.7 The ol element
Categories
137
Content model:
Zero or more li elements.
reversed
start
DOM interface:
interface HTMLOListElement : HTMLElement {

attribute boolean reversed;
attribute long start;
};
The ol element represents a list of items, where the items have been intentionally ordered, such
that changing the order would change the meaning of the document.
The items of the list are the li element child nodes of the ol element, in tree order (page 28).
The reversed attribute is a boolean attribute (page 37). If present, it indicates that the list is a
descending list (..., 3, 2, 1). If the attribute is omitted, the list is an ascending list (1, 2, 3, ...).
The start attribute, if present, must be a valid integer (page 38) giving the ordinal value of the
first list item.
If the start attribute is present, user agents must parse it as an integer (page 38), in order to
determine the attribute's value. The default value, used if the attribute is missing or if the value
cannot be converted to a number according to the referenced algorithm, is 1 if the element has
no reversed attribute, and is the number of child li elements otherwise.
The first item in the list has the ordinal value given by the ol element's start attribute, unless
that li element has a value attribute with a value that can be successfully parsed, in which
case it has the ordinal value given by that value attribute.
Each subsequent item in the list has the ordinal value given by its value attribute, if it has one,
or, if it doesn't, the ordinal value of the previous item, plus one if the reversed is absent, or
minus one if it is present.
The reversed DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the value of the reversed content attribute.
The start DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the value of the start content attribute.
The following markup shows a list where the order matters, and where the ol element is
therefore appropriate. Compare this list to the equivalent list in the ul section to see an
example of the same items using the ul element.
138
<p>I have lived in the following countries (given in the order of when
I first lived there):</p>
<ol>
<li>Switzerland
<li>United Kingdom
<li>United States
<li>Norway
</ol>
Note how changing the order of the list changes the meaning of the document. In the
following example, changing the relative order of the first two items has changed the
birthplace of the author:
<p>I have lived in the following countries (given in the order of when
I first lived there):</p>
<ol>
<li>United Kingdom
<li>Switzerland
<li>United States
<li>Norway
</ol>
4.4.8 The ul element
Categories

Content model:
Zero or more li elements.
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The ul element represents a list of items, where the order of the items is not important — that
is, where changing the order would not materially change the meaning of the document.
The items of the list are the li element child nodes of the ul element.
The following markup shows a list where the order does not matter, and where the ul
element is therefore appropriate. Compare this list to the equivalent list in the ol section to
see an example of the same items using the ol element.
<p>I have lived in the following countries:</p>

<ul>
139
<li>Norway
<li>Switzerland
<li>United Kingdom
<li>United States
</ul>
Note that changing the order of the list does not change the meaning of the document. The
items in the snippet above are given in alphabetical order, but in the snippet below they are
given in order of the size of their current account balance in 2007, without changing the
meaning of the document whatsoever:
<p>I have lived in the following countries:</p>

<ul>
<li>Switzerland
<li>Norway
<li>United Kingdom
<li>United States
</ul>
4.4.9 The li element
Categories
None.

Inside ol elements.
Inside ul elements.
Inside menu elements.
Content model:
When the element is a child of a menu element: phrasing content (page 90).
Otherwise: flow content (page 89).
If the element is a child of an ol element: value
If the element is not the child of an ol element: None.
DOM interface:
interface HTMLLIElement : HTMLElement {

attribute long value;
};
The li element represents a list item. If its parent element is an ol, ul, or menu element, then
the element is an item of the parent element's list, as defined for those elements. Otherwise, the
list item has no defined list-related relationship to any other li element.
The value attribute, if present, must be a valid integer (page 38) giving the ordinal value of the
list item.
140
If the value attribute is present, user agents must parse it as an integer (page 38), in order to
determine the attribute's value. If the attribute's value cannot be converted to a number, the
attribute must be treated as if it was absent. The attribute has no default value.
The value attribute is processed relative to the element's parent ol element (q.v.), if there is
one. If there is not, the attribute has no effect.
The value DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the value of the value content attribute.
The following example, the top ten movies are listed (in reverse order). Note the way the list
is given a title by using a figure element and its legend.
<figure>
<legend>The top 10 movies of all time</legend>
<ol>
<li value="10"><cite>Josie and the Pussycats</cite>, 2001</li>
<li value="9"><cite lang="sh">Црна мачка, бели мачор</cite>, 1998</li>
<li value="8"><cite>A Bug's Life</cite>, 1998</li>
<li value="7"><cite>Toy Story</cite>, 1995</li>
<li value="6"><cite>Monsters, Inc</cite>, 2001</li>
<li value="5"><cite>Cars</cite>, 2006</li>
<li value="4"><cite>Toy Story 2</cite>, 1999</li>
<li value="3"><cite>Finding Nemo</cite>, 2003</li>
<li value="2"><cite>The Incredibles</cite>, 2004</li>
<li value="1"><cite>Ratatouille</cite>, 2007</li>
</ol>
</figure>
The markup could also be written as follows, using the reversed attribute on the ol
element:
<figure>
<legend>The top 10 movies of all time</legend>
<ol reversed>
<li><cite>Josie and the Pussycats</cite>, 2001</li>
<li><cite lang="sh">Црна мачка, бели мачор</cite>, 1998</li>
<li><cite>A Bug's Life</cite>, 1998</li>
<li><cite>Toy Story</cite>, 1995</li>
<li><cite>Monsters, Inc</cite>, 2001</li>
<li><cite>Cars</cite>, 2006</li>
<li><cite>Toy Story 2</cite>, 1999</li>
<li><cite>Finding Nemo</cite>, 2003</li>
<li><cite>The Incredibles</cite>, 2004</li>
<li><cite>Ratatouille</cite>, 2007</li>
</ol>
</figure>
141
4.4.10 The dl element
Categories

Content model:
Zero or more groups each consisting of one or more dt elements followed by one or mode
dd elements.
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The dl element introduces an association list consisting of zero or more name-value groups (a
description list). Each group must consist of one or more names (dt elements) followed by one
or more values (dd elements).
Name-value groups may be terms and definitions, metadata topics and values, or any other
groups of name-value data.
The values within a group are alternatives; multiple paragraphs forming part of the same value
must all be given within the same dd element.
The order of the list of groups, and of the names and values within each group, may be
significant.
If a dl element is empty, it contains no groups.
If a dl element contains non-whitespace (page 88) text nodes (page 28), or elements other than
dt and dd, then those elements or text nodes (page 28) do not form part of any groups in that
dl.
If a dl element contains only dt elements, then it consists of one group with names but no
values.
If a dl element contains only dd elements, then it consists of one group with values but no
names.
If a dl element starts with one or more dd elements, then the first group has no associated
name.
If a dl element ends with one or more dt elements, then the last group has no associated value.
Note: When a dl element doesn't match its content model, it is often due to
accidentally using dd elements in the place of dt elements and vice versa.
142
Conformance checkers can spot such mistakes and might be able to advise
authors how to correctly use the markup.
In the following example, one entry ("Authors") is linked to two values ("John" and "Luke").
<dl>
<dt> Authors
<dd> John
<dd> Luke
<dt> Editor
<dd> Frank
</dl>
In the following example, one definition is linked to two terms.
<dl>
<dt lang="en-US"> <dfn>color</dfn> </dt>
<dt lang="en-GB"> <dfn>colour</dfn> </dt>
<dd> A sensation which (in humans) derives from the ability of
the fine structure of the eye to distinguish three differently
filtered analyses of a view. </dd>
</dl>
The following example illustrates the use of the dl element to mark up metadata of sorts. At
the end of the example, one group has two metadata labels ("Authors" and "Editors") and
two values ("Robert Rothman" and "Daniel Jackson").
<dl>
<dt> Last modified time </dt>
<dd> 2004-12-23T23:33Z </dd>
<dt> Recommended update interval </dt>
<dd> 60s </dd>
<dt> Authors </dt>
<dt> Editors </dt>
<dd> Robert Rothman </dd>
<dd> Daniel Jackson </dd>
</dl>
The following example shows the dl element used to give a set of instructions. The order of
the instructions here is important (in the other examples, the order of the blocks was not
important).
<p>Determine the victory points as follows (use the

first matching case):</p>
<dl>
<dt> If you have exactly five gold coins </dt>
<dd> You get five victory points </dd>
<dt> If you have one or more gold coins, and you have one or more silver
coins </dt>
<dd> You get two victory points </dd>
143
<dt> If you have one or more silver coins </dt>
<dd> You get one victory point </dd>
<dt> Otherwise </dt>
<dd> You get no victory points </dd>
</dl>
The following snippet shows a dl element being used as a glossary. Note the use of dfn to
indicate the word being defined.
<dl>
<dt><dfn>Apartment</dfn>, n.</dt>
<dd>An execution context grouping one or more threads with one or
more COM objects.</dd>
<dt><dfn>Flat</dfn>, n.</dt>
<dd>A deflated tire.</dd>
<dt><dfn>Home</dfn>, n.</dt>
<dd>The user's login directory.</dd>
</dl>
Note: The dl element is inappropriate for marking up dialogue, since dialogue

is ordered (each speaker/line pair comes after the next). For an example of
how to mark up dialogue, see the dialog element.
4.4.11 The dt element
Categories
None.

Before dd or dt elements inside dl elements.
Before a dd element inside a dialog element.
Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The dt element represents the term, or name, part of a term-description group in a description
list (dl element), and the talker, or speaker, part of a talker-discourse pair in a conversation
(dialog element).
144
Note: The dt element itself, when used in a dl element, does not indicate that
its contents are a term being defined, but this can be indicated using the dfn
element.
If the dt element is the child of a dialog element, and it further contains a time element, then
that time element represents a timestamp for when the associated discourse (dd element) was
said, and is not part of the name of the talker.
The following extract shows how an IM conversation log could be marked up.
<dialog>
<dt> <time>14:22</time> egof
<dd> I'm not that nerdy, I've only seen 30% of the star trek episodes
<dt> <time>14:23</time> kaj
<dd> if you know what percentage of the star trek episodes you have
seen, you are inarguably nerdy
<dt> <time>14:23</time> egof
<dd> it's unarguably
<dt> <time>14:24</time> kaj
<dd> you are not helping your case
</dialog>
4.4.12 The dd element
Categories
None.

After dt or dd elements inside dl elements.
After a dt element inside a dialog element.
Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The dd element represents the description, definition, or value, part of a term-description group
in a description list (dl element), and the discourse, or quote, part in a conversation (dialog
element).
145
4.5 Text-level semantics
4.5.1 The a element
Categories
Interactive content (page 91).

Content model:
Phrasing content (page 90), but there must be no interactive content (page 91)
descendant.
href
target
ping
rel
media
hreflang
type
DOM interface:
[Stringifies=href] interface HTMLAnchorElement : HTMLElement {

attribute DOMString ping;
};
The Command interface must also be implemented by this element.
If the a element has an href attribute, then it represents a hyperlink (page 436).
If the a element has no href attribute, then the element is a placeholder for where a link might
otherwise have been placed, if it had been relevant.
The target, ping, rel, media, hreflang, and type attributes must be omitted if the href
attribute is not present.
If a site uses a consistent navigation toolbar on every page, then the link that would
normally link to the page itself could be marked up using an a element:
146
<nav>
<ul>
<li> <a href="/">Home</a> </li>
<li> <a href="/news">News</a> </li>
<li> <a>Examples</a> </li>
<li> <a href="/legal">Legal</a> </li>
</ul>
</nav>
Interactive user agents should allow users to follow hyperlinks (page 437) created using the a
element. The href, target and ping attributes decide how the link is followed. The rel, media,
hreflang, and type attributes may be used to indicate to the user the likely nature of the target
resource before the user follows the link.
The activation behavior (page 26) of a elements that represent hyperlinks is to run the following
steps:
1. If the DOMActivate event in question is not trusted (i.e. a click() method call was the
reason for the event being dispatched), and the a element's target attribute is ...
then raise an INVALID_ACCESS_ERR exception and abort these steps.
2. If the target of the DOMActivate event is an img element with an ismap attribute
specified, then server-side image map processing must be performed, as follows:
1. If the DOMActivate event was dispatched as the result of a real

pointing-device-triggered click event on the img element, then let x be the
distance in CSS pixels from the left edge of the image to the location of the click,
and let y be the distance in CSS pixels from the top edge of the image to the
location of the click. Otherwise, let x and y be zero.
2. Let the hyperlink suffix be a U+003F QUESTION MARK character, the value of
x expressed as a base-ten integer using ASCII digits (U+0030 DIGIT ZERO to
U+0039 DIGIT NINE), a U+002C COMMA character, and the value of y expressed
as a base-ten integer using ASCII digits.
3. Finally, the user agent must follow the hyperlink (page 437) defined by the a element. If
the steps above defined a hyperlink suffix, then take that into account when following
the hyperlink.
Note: One way that a user agent can enable users to follow hyperlinks is by
allowing a elements to be clicked, or focussed and activated by the keyboard.
This will cause the aforementioned activation behavior (page 26) to be
invoked.
The DOM attributes href, ping, target, rel, media, hreflang, and type, must each reflect
(page 55) the respective content attributes of the same name.
147
4.5.2 The q element
Categories

Content model:
cite
DOM interface:
The q element uses the HTMLQuoteElement interface.
The q element represents some phrasing content (page 90) quoted from another source.
Quotation punctuation (such as quotation marks), if any, must be placed inside the q element.
Content inside a q element must be quoted from another source, whose address, if it has one,
should be cited in the cite attribute.
If the cite attribute is present, it must be a valid URL (page 29). User agents should allow users
to follow such citation links.
If a q element is contained (directly or indirectly) in a paragraph (page 92) that contains a single
cite element and has no other q element descendants, then, the title of the work given by that
cite element gives the source of the quotation contained in the q element.
Here is a simple example of the use of the q element:
<p>The man said <q>"Things that are impossible just take

longer"</q>. I disagreed with him.</p>
Here is an example with both an explicit citation link in the q element, and an explicit
citation outside:
<p>The W3C page <cite>About W3C</cite> says the W3C's

mission is <q cite="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/">"To lead the
World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols and
guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the Web"</q>. I
disagree with this mission.</p>
In the following example, the quotation itself contains a quotation:
<p>In <cite>Example One</cite>, he writes <q>"The man

said <q>'Things that are impossible just take longer'</q>. I
disagreed with him"</q>. Well, I disagree even more!</p>
In the following example, there are no quotation marks:
148
<p>His best argument: <q>I disagree!</q></p>
4.5.3 The cite element
Categories

Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The cite element represents the title of a work (e.g. a book, a paper, an essay, a poem, a score,
a song, a script, a film, a TV show, a game, a sculpture, a painting, a theatre production, a play,
an opera, a musical, an exhibition, etc). This can be a work that is being quoted or referenced in
detail (i.e. a citation), or it can just be a work that is mentioned in passing.
A person's name is not the title of a work — even if people call that person a piece of work —
and the element must therefore not be used to mark up people's names. (In some cases, the b
element might be appropriate for names; e.g. in a gossip article where the names of famous
people are keywords rendered with a different style to draw attention to them. In other cases, if
an element is really needed, the span element can be used.)
A ship is similarly not a work, and the element must not be used to mark up ship names (the i
element can be used for that purpose).
This next example shows a typical use of the cite element:
<p>My favourite book is <cite>The Reality Dysfunction</cite> by

Peter F. Hamilton. My favourite comic is <cite>Pearls Before
Swine</cite> by Stephan Pastis. My favourite track is <cite>Jive
Samba</cite> by the Cannonball Adderley Sextet.</p>
This is correct usage:
<p>According to the Wikipedia article <cite>HTML</cite>, as it

stood in mid-February 2008, leaving attribute values unquoted is
unsafe. This is obviously an over-simplification.</p>
The following, however, is incorrect usage, as the cite element here is containing far more
than the title of the work:
149

<p>According to <cite>the Wikipedia article on HTML</cite>, as it
stood in mid-February 2008, leaving attribute values unquoted is
unsafe. This is obviously an over-simplification.</p>
The cite element is obviously a key part of any citation in a bibliography, but it is only used
to mark the title:
<p><cite>Universal Declaration of Human Rights</cite>, United Nations,

December 1948. Adopted by General Assembly resolution 217 A (III).</p>
Note: A citation is not a quote (for which the q element is appropriate).
This is incorrect usage, because cite is not for quotes:
<p><cite>This is wrong!</cite>, said Ian.</p>
This is also incorrect usage, because a person is not a work:
<p><q>This is still wrong!</q>, said <cite>Ian</cite>.</p>
The correct usage does not use a cite element:
<p><q>This is correct</q>, said Ian.</p>
As mentioned above, the b element might be relevant for marking names as being keywords
in certain kinds of documents:
<p>And then <b>Ian</b> said <q>this might be right, in a

gossip column, maybe!</q>.</p>
Note: The cite element can apply to blockquote and q elements in certain
cases described in the definitions of those elements.
This next example shows the use of cite alongside blockquote:
<p>His next piece was the aptly named <cite>Sonnet 130</cite>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,<br>
Coral is far more red, than her lips red,
...
4.5.4 The em element
Categories

150
Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The em element represents stress emphasis of its contents.
The level of emphasis that a particular piece of content has is given by its number of ancestor em
elements.
The placement of emphasis changes the meaning of the sentence. The element thus forms an
integral part of the content. The precise way in which emphasis is used in this way depends on
the language.
These examples show how changing the emphasis changes the meaning. First, a general
statement of fact, with no emphasis:
<p>Cats are cute animals.</p>
By emphasizing the first word, the statement implies that the kind of animal under
discussion is in question (maybe someone is asserting that dogs are cute):
<p><em>Cats</em> are cute animals.</p>
Moving the emphasis to the verb, one highlights that the truth of the entire sentence is in
question (maybe someone is saying cats are not cute):
<p>Cats <em>are</em> cute animals.</p>
By moving it to the adjective, the exact nature of the cats is reasserted (maybe someone
suggested cats were mean animals):
<p>Cats are <em>cute</em> animals.</p>
Similarly, if someone asserted that cats were vegetables, someone correcting this might
emphasize the last word:
<p>Cats are cute <em>animals</em>.</p>
By emphasizing the entire sentence, it becomes clear that the speaker is fighting hard to
get the point across. This kind of emphasis also typically affects the punctuation, hence the
exclamation mark here.
<p><em>Cats are cute animals!</em></p>
Anger mixed with emphasizing the cuteness could lead to markup such as:
151
<p><em>Cats are <em>cute</em> animals!</em></p>
4.5.5 The strong element
Categories

Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The strong element represents strong importance for its contents.
The relative level of importance of a piece of content is given by its number of ancestor strong
elements; each strong element increases the importance of its contents.
Changing the importance of a piece of text with the strong element does not change the
meaning of the sentence.
Here is an example of a warning notice in a game, with the various parts marked up
according to how important they are:
<p><strong>Warning.</strong> This dungeon is dangerous.

<strong>Avoid the ducks.</strong> Take any gold you find.
<strong><strong>Do not take any of the diamonds</strong>,
they are explosive and <strong>will destroy anything within
ten meters.</strong></strong> You have been warned.</p>
4.5.6 The small element
Categories

Content model:
152
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The small element represents small print (part of a document often describing legal restrictions,
such as copyrights or other disadvantages), or other side comments.
Note: The small element does not "de-emphasize" or lower the importance of
text emphasised by the em element or marked as important with the strong
element.
In this example the footer contains contact information and a copyright.
<footer>
<address>
For more details, contact
<a href="mailto:js@example.com">John Smith</a>.
</address>
<p><small>© copyright 2038 Example Corp.</small></p>
</footer>
In this second example, the small element is used for a side comment.
<p>Example Corp today announced record profits for the

second quarter <small>(Full Disclosure: Foo News is a subsidiary of
Example Corp)</small>, leading to speculation about a third quarter
merger with Demo Group.</p>
In this last example, the small element is marked as being important small print.
<p><strong><small>Continued use of this service will result in a

kiss.</small></strong></p>
4.5.7 The mark element
Categories

Content model:
153
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The mark element represents a run of text in one document marked or highlighted for reference
purposes, due to its relevance in another context. When used in a quotation or other block of
text referred to from the prose, it indicates a highlight that was not originally present but which
has been added to bring the reader's attention to a part of the text that might not have been
considered important by the original author when the block was originally written, but which is
now under previously unexpected scrutiny. When used in the main prose of a document, it
indicates a part of the document that has been highlighted due to its likely relevance to the
user's current activity.
The rendering section will eventually suggest that user agents provide a way to let users jump
between mark elements. Suggested rendering is a neon yellow background highlight, though
UAs maybe should allow this to be toggled.
This example shows how the mark example can be used to bring attention to a particular
part of a quotation:
<p lang="en-US">Consider the following quote:</p>

<blockquote lang="en-GB">
<p>Look around and you will find, no-one's really
<mark>colour</mark> blind.</p>
</blockquote>
<p lang="en-US">As we can tell from the <em>spelling</em> of the word,
the person writing this quote is clearly not American.</p>
Another example of the mark element is highlighting parts of a document that are matching
some search string. If someone looked at a document, and the server knew that the user
was searching for the word "kitten", then the server might return the document with one
paragraph modified as follows:
<p>I also have some <mark>kitten</mark>s who are visiting me

these days. They're really cute. I think they like my garden! Maybe I
should adopt a <mark>kitten</mark>.</p>
In the following snippet, a paragraph of text refers to a specific part of a code fragment.
<p>The highlighted part below is where the error lies:</p>

<pre><code>var i: Integer;
begin
i := <mark>1.1</mark>;
end.</code></pre>
154
This is another example showing the use of mark to highlight a part of quoted text that was
originally not emphasised. In this example, common typographic conventions have led the
author to explicitly style mark elements in quotes to render in italics.
<article>
<style>
blockquote mark, q mark {
font: inherit; font-style: italic;
text-decoration: none;
background: transparent; color: inherit;
}
.bubble em {
font: inherit; font-size: larger;
text-decoration: underline;
}
</style>
<h1>She knew</h1>
<p>Did you notice the subtle joke in the joke on panel 4?</p>
<blockquote>
<p class="bubble">I didn't <em>want</em> to believe. <mark>Of course
on some level I realized it was a known-plaintext attack.</mark> But I
couldn't admit it until I saw for myself.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>(Emphasis mine.) I thought that was great. It's so pedantic, yet it
explains everything neatly.</p>
</article>
Note, incidentally, the distinction between the em element in this example, which is part of
the original text being quoted, and the mark element, which is highlighting a part for
comment.
The following example shows the difference between denoting the importance of a span of
text (strong) as opposed to denoting the relevance of a span of text (mark). It is an extract
from a textbook, where the extract has had the parts relevant to the exam highlighted. The
safety warnings, important though they may be, are apparently not relevant to the exam.
<h3>Wormhole Physics Introduction</h3>
<p><mark>A wormhole in normal conditions can be held open for a

maximum of just under 39 minutes.</mark> Conditions that can increase
the time include a powerful energy source coupled to one or both of
the gates connecting the wormhole, and a large gravity well (such as a
black hole).</p>
<p><mark>Momentum is preserved across the wormhole. Electromagnetic

radiation can travel in both directions through a wormhole,
but matter cannot.</mark></p>
<p>When a wormhole is created, a vortex normally forms.
155
<strong>Warning: The vortex caused by the wormhole opening will
annihilate anything in its path.</strong> Vortexes can be avoided when
using sufficiently advanced dialing technology.</p>
<p><mark>An obstruction in a gate will prevent it from accepting a

wormhole connection.</mark></p>
4.5.8 The dfn element
Categories

Content model:
Phrasing content (page 90), but there must be no descendant dfn elements.
None, but the title attribute has special semantics on this element.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The dfn element represents the defining instance of a term. The paragraph (page 92),
description list group (page 142), or section (page 90) that is the nearest ancestor of the dfn
element must also contain the definition(s) for the term (page 156) given by the dfn element.
Defining term: If the dfn element has a title attribute, then the exact value of that attribute
is the term being defined. Otherwise, if it contains exactly one element child node and no child
text nodes (page 28), and that child element is an abbr element with a title attribute, then the
exact value of that attribute is the term being defined. Otherwise, it is the exact textContent of
the dfn element that gives the term being defined.
If the title attribute of the dfn element is present, then it must contain only the term being
defined.
Note: The title attribute of ancestor elements does not affect dfn elements.
An a element that links to a dfn element represents an instance of the term defined by the dfn
element.
In the following fragment, the term "GDO" is first defined in the first paragraph, then used in
the second.
<p>The <dfn><abbr title="Garage Door Opener">GDO</abbr></dfn>

is a device that allows off-world teams to open the iris.</p>

156
<p>Teal'c activated his <abbr title="Garage Door Opener">GDO</abbr>
and so Hammond ordered the iris to be opened.</p>
With the addition of an a element, the reference can be made explicit:
<p>The <dfn id=gdo><abbr title="Garage Door Opener">GDO</abbr></dfn>

is a device that allows off-world teams to open the iris.</p>

<p>Teal'c activated his <a href=#gdo><abbr title="Garage Door
Opener">GDO</abbr></a>
and so Hammond ordered the iris to be opened.</p>
4.5.9 The abbr element
Categories

Content model:
None, but the title attribute has special semantics on this element.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The abbr element represents an abbreviation or acronym, optionally with its expansion. The
title attribute may be used to provide an expansion of the abbreviation. The attribute, if
specified, must contain an expansion of the abbreviation, and nothing else.
The paragraph below contains an abbreviation marked up with the abbr element. This
paragraph defines the term (page 156) "Web Hypertext Application Technology Working
Group".
<p>The <dfn id=whatwg><abbr title="Web Hypertext Application

Technology Working Group">WHATWG</abbr></dfn> is a loose
unofficial collaboration of Web browser manufacturers and interested
parties who wish to develop new technologies designed to allow authors
to write and deploy Applications over the World Wide Web.</p>
This paragraph has two abbreviations. Notice how only one is defined; the other, with no
expansion associated with it, does not use the abbr element.
<p>The <abbr title="Web Hypertext Application Technology Working

Group">WHATWG</abbr> started working on HTML5 in 2004.</p>
157
This paragraph links an abbreviation to its definition.
<p>The <a href="#whatwg"><abbr title="Web Hypertext Application

Technology Working Group">WHATWG</abbr></a> community does not
have much representation from Asia.</p>
This paragraph marks up an abbreviation without giving an expansion, possibly as a hook to

apply styles for abbreviations (e.g. smallcaps).
<p>Philip` and Dashiva both denied that they were going to

get the issue counts from past revisions of the specification to
backfill the <abbr>WHATWG</abbr> issue graph.</p>
If an abbreviation is pluralized, the expansion's grammatical number (plural vs singular) must

match the grammatical number of the contents of the element.
Here the plural is outside the element, so the expansion is in the singular:
<p>Two <abbr title="Working Group">WG</abbr>s worked on

this specification: the <abbr>WHATWG</abbr> and the
<abbr>HTMLWG</abbr>.</p>
Here the plural is inside the element, so the expansion is in the plural:
<p>Two <abbr title="Working Groups">WGs</abbr> worked on

this specification: the <abbr>WHATWG</abbr> and the
<abbr>HTMLWG</abbr>.</p>
4.5.10 The time element
Categories

Content model:
datetime
DOM interface:
interface HTMLTimeElement : HTMLElement {

attribute DOMString dateTime;
readonly attribute DOMTimeStamp date;
readonly attribute DOMTimeStamp time;
readonly attribute DOMTimeStamp timezone;
};
158
The time element represents a date and/or a time.
The datetime attribute, if present, must contain a date or time string (page 48) that identifies
the date or time being specified.
If the datetime attribute is not present, then the date or time must be specified in the content of
the element, such that parsing the element's textContent according to the rules for parsing
date or time strings in content (page 48) successfully extracts a date or time.
The dateTime DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the datetime content attribute.
User agents, to obtain the date, time, and timezone represented by a time element, must
follow these steps:
1. If the datetime attribute is present, then parse it according to the rules for parsing date
or time strings in attributes (page 48), and let the result be result.
2. Otherwise, parse the element's textContent according to the rules for parsing date or
time strings in content (page 48), and let the result be result.
3. If result is empty (because the parsing failed), then the date (page 159) is unknown, the
time (page 159) is unknown, and the timezone (page 159) is unknown.
4. Otherwise: if result contains a date, then that is the date (page 159); if result contains a
time, then that is the time (page 159); and if result contains a timezone, then the
timezone is the element's timezone (page 159). (A timezone can only be present if both
a date and a time are also present.)
The date DOM attribute must return null if the date (page 159) is unknown, and otherwise must
return the time corresponding to midnight UTC (i.e. the first second) of the given date (page
159).
The time DOM attribute must return null if the time (page 159) is unknown, and otherwise must
return the time corresponding to the given time (page 159) of 1970-01-01, with the timezone
UTC.
The timezone DOM attribute must return null if the timezone (page 159) is unknown, and
otherwise must return the time corresponding to 1970-01-01 00:00 UTC in the given timezone
(page 159), with the timezone set to UTC (i.e. the time corresponding to 1970-01-01 at 00:00
UTC plus the offset corresponding to the timezone).
In the following snippet:
<p>Our first date was <time datetime="2006-09-23">a Saturday</time>.</p>
...the time element's date attribute would have the value 1,158,969,600,000ms, and the
time and timezone attributes would return null.
In the following snippet:
<p>We stopped talking at <time datetime="2006-09-24 05:00 -7">5am the

next morning</time>.</p>
159
...the time element's date attribute would have the value 1,159,056,000,000ms, the time
attribute would have the value 18,000,000ms, and the timezone attribute would return
−25,200,000ms. To obtain the actual time, the three attributes can be added together,
obtaining 1,159,048,800,000, which is the specified date and time in UTC.
Finally, in the following snippet:
<p>Many people get up at <time>08:00</time>.</p>
...the time element's date attribute would have the value null, the time attribute would
have the value 28,800,000ms, and the timezone attribute would return null.
These APIs may be suboptimal. Comments on making them more useful to JS authors are
welcome. The primary use cases for these elements are for marking up publication dates e.g.
in blog entries, and for marking event dates in hCalendar markup. Thus the DOM APIs are
likely to be used as ways to generate interactive calendar widgets or some such.
4.5.11 The progress element
Categories

Content model:
value
max
DOM interface:
interface HTMLProgressElement : HTMLElement {

attribute float value;
attribute float max;
readonly attribute float position;
};
The progress element represents the completion progress of a task. The progress is either
indeterminate, indicating that progress is being made but that it is not clear how much more
work remains to be done before the task is complete (e.g. because the task is waiting for a
remote host to respond), or the progress is a number in the range zero to a maximum, giving
the fraction of work that has so far been completed.
There are two attributes that determine the current task completion represented by the
element.
160
The value attribute specifies how much of the task has been completed, and the max attribute
specifies how much work the task requires in total. The units are arbitrary and not specified.
Instead of using the attributes, authors are recommended to include the current value and the
maximum value inline as text inside the element.
Here is a snippet of a Web application that shows the progress of some automated task:
<section>
<h2>Task Progress</h2>
<p>Progress: <progress><span id="p">0</span>%</progress></p>
<script>
var progressBar = document.getElementById('p');
function updateProgress(newValue) {
progressBar.textContent = newValue;
}
</script>
</section>
(The updateProgress() method in this example would be called by some other code on the
page to update the actual progress bar as the task progressed.)
Author requirements: The max and value attributes, when present, must have values that are
valid floating point numbers (page 39). The max attribute, if present, must have a value greater
than zero. The value attribute, if present, must have a value equal to or greater than zero, and
less than or equal to the value of the max attribute, if present.
Note: The progress element is the wrong element to use for something that is
just a gauge, as opposed to task progress. For instance, indicating disk space
usage using progress would be inappropriate. Instead, the meter element is
available for such use cases.
User agent requirements: User agents must parse the max and value attributes' values
according to the rules for parsing floating point number values (page 39).
If the value attribute is omitted, then user agents must also parse the textContent of the
progress element in question using the steps for finding one or two numbers of a ratio in a
string (page 40). These steps will return nothing, one number, one number with a denominator
punctuation character, or two numbers.
Using the results of this processing, user agents must determine whether the progress bar is an
indeterminate progress bar, or whether it is a determinate progress bar, and in the latter case,
what its current and maximum values are, all as follows:
1. If the max attribute is omitted, and the value is omitted, and the results of parsing the
textContent was nothing, then the progress bar is an indeterminate progress bar. Abort
these steps.
2. Otherwise, it is a determinate progress bar.
161
3. If the max attribute is included, then, if a value could be parsed out of it, then the
maximum value is that value.
4. Otherwise, if the max attribute is absent but the value attribute is present, or, if the max
attribute is present but no value could be parsed from it, then the maximum is 1.
5. Otherwise, if neither attribute is included, then, if the textContent contained one

number with an associated denominator punctuation character, then the maximum
value is the value associated with that denominator punctuation character; otherwise, if
the textContent contained two numbers, the maximum value is the higher of the two
values; otherwise, the maximum value is 1.
6. If the value attribute is present on the element and a value could be parsed out of it,
that value is the current value of the progress bar. Otherwise, if the attribute is present
but no value could be parsed from it, the current value is zero.
7. Otherwise if the value attribute is absent and the max attribute is present, then, if the
textContent was parsed and found to contain just one number, with no associated
denominator punctuation character, then the current value is that number. Otherwise, if
the value attribute is absent and the max attribute is present then the current value is
zero.
8. Otherwise, if neither attribute is present, then the current value is the lower of the one
or two numbers that were found in the textContent of the element.
9. If the maximum value is less than or equal to zero, then it is reset to 1.
10. If the current value is less than zero, then it is reset to zero.
11. Finally, if the current value is greater than the maximum value, then the current value is
reset to the maximum value.
UA requirements for showing the progress bar: When representing a progress element to
the user, the UA should indicate whether it is a determinate or indeterminate progress bar, and
in the former case, should indicate the relative position of the current value relative to the
maximum value.
The max and value DOM attributes must reflect (page 55) the elements' content attributes of the
same name. When the relevant content attributes are absent, the DOM attributes must return
zero. The value parsed from the textContent never affects the DOM values.
Would be cool to have the value DOM attribute update the textContent in-line...
If the progress bar is an indeterminate progress bar, then the position DOM attribute must
return −1. Otherwise, it must return the result of dividing the current value by the maximum
value.
162
4.5.12 The meter element
Categories

Content model:
value
min
low
high
max
optimum
DOM interface:
interface HTMLMeterElement : HTMLElement {

attribute float value;
attribute float min;
attribute float max;
attribute float low;
attribute float high;
attribute float optimum;
};
The meter element represents a scalar measurement within a known range, or a fractional
value; for example disk usage, the relevance of a query result, or the fraction of a voting
population to have selected a particular candidate.
This is also known as a gauge.
Note: The meter element should not be used to indicate progress (as in a
progress bar). For that role, HTML provides a separate progress element.
Note: The meter element also does not represent a scalar value of arbitrary
range — for example, it would be wrong to use this to report a weight, or
height, unless there is a known maximum value.
There are six attributes that determine the semantics of the gauge represented by the element.
The min attribute specifies the lower bound of the range, and the max attribute specifies the
upper bound. The value attribute specifies the value to have the gauge indicate as the
"measured" value.
163
The other three attributes can be used to segment the gauge's range into "low", "medium", and
"high" parts, and to indicate which part of the gauge is the "optimum" part. The low attribute
specifies the range that is considered to be the "low" part, and the high attribute specifies the
range that is considered to be the "high" part. The optimum attribute gives the position that is
"optimum"; if that is higher than the "high" value then this indicates that the higher the value,
the better; if it's lower than the "low" mark then it indicates that lower values are better, and
naturally if it is in between then it indicates that neither high nor low values are good.
Authoring requirements: The recommended way of giving the value is to include it as

contents of the element, either as two numbers (the higher number represents the maximum,
the other number the current value, and the minimum is assumed to be zero), or as a
percentage or similar (using one of the characters such as "%"), or as a fraction.
The value, min, low, high, max, and optimum attributes are all optional. When present, they
must have values that are valid floating point numbers (page 39), and their values must satisfy
the following inequalities:
• min ≤ value ≤ max

• min ≤ low ≤ high ≤ max
• min ≤ optimum ≤ max
The following examples all represent a measurement of three quarters (of the maximum of
whatever is being measured):
<meter>75%</meter>
<meter>750‰</meter>
<meter>3/4</meter>
<meter>6 blocks used (out of 8 total)</meter>
<meter>max: 100; current: 75</meter>
<meter><object data="graph75.png">0.75</object></meter>
<meter min="0" max="100" value="75"></meter>
The following example is incorrect use of the element, because it doesn't give a range (and
since the default maximum is 1, both of the gauges would end up looking maxed out):
<p>The grapefruit pie had a radius of <meter>12cm</meter>

and a height of <meter>2cm</meter>.</p> 
Instead, one would either not include the meter element, or use the meter element with a
defined range to give the dimensions in context compared to other pies:
<p>The grapefruit pie had a radius of 12cm and a height of

2cm.</p>
<dl>
<dt>Radius: <dd> <meter min=0 max=20 value=12>12cm</meter>
<dt>Height: <dd> <meter min=0 max=10 value=2>2cm</meter>
</dl>
There is no explicit way to specify units in the meter element, but the units may be specified in
the title attribute in free-form text.
164
The example above could be extended to mention the units:
<dl>
<dt>Radius: <dd> <meter min=0 max=20 value=12
title="centimeters">12cm</meter>
<dt>Height: <dd> <meter min=0 max=10 value=2
title="centimeters">2cm</meter>
</dl>
User agent requirements: User agents must parse the min, max, value, low, high, and
optimum attributes using the rules for parsing floating point number values (page 39).
If the value attribute has been omitted, the user agent must also process the textContent of
the element according to the steps for finding one or two numbers of a ratio in a string (page
40). These steps will return nothing, one number, one number with a denominator punctuation
character, or two numbers.
User agents must then use all these numbers to obtain values for six points on the gauge, as
follows. (The order in which these are evaluated is important, as some of the values refer to
earlier ones.)
The minimum value

If the min attribute is specified and a value could be parsed out of it, then the minimum
value is that value. Otherwise, the minimum value is zero.
The maximum value

If the max attribute is specified and a value could be parsed out of it, the maximum value is
that value.
Otherwise, if the max attribute is specified but no value could be parsed out of it, or if it was
not specified, but either or both of the min or value attributes were specified, then the
maximum value is 1.
Otherwise, none of the max, min, and value attributes were specified. If the result of
processing the textContent of the element was either nothing or just one number with no
denominator punctuation character, then the maximum value is 1; if the result was one
number but it had an associated denominator punctuation character, then the maximum
value is the value associated with that denominator punctuation character (page 40); and
finally, if there were two numbers parsed out of the textContent, then the maximum is the
higher of those two numbers.
If the above machinations result in a maximum value less than the minimum value, then the
maximum value is actually the same as the minimum value.
The actual value

If the value attribute is specified and a value could be parsed out of it, then that value is
the actual value.
165
If the value attribute is not specified but the max attribute is specified and the result of
processing the textContent of the element was one number with no associated
denominator punctuation character, then that number is the actual value.
If neither of the value and max attributes are specified, then, if the result of processing the
textContent of the element was one number (with or without an associated denominator
punctuation character), then that is the actual value, and if the result of processing the
textContent of the element was two numbers, then the actual value is the lower of the two
numbers found.
Otherwise, if none of the above apply, the actual value is zero.
If the above procedure results in an actual value less than the minimum value, then the
actual value is actually the same as the minimum value.
If, on the other hand, the result is an actual value greater than the maximum value, then
the actual value is the maximum value.
The low boundary

If the low attribute is specified and a value could be parsed out of it, then the low boundary
is that value. Otherwise, the low boundary is the same as the minimum value.
If the above results in a low boundary that is less than the minimum value, the low
boundary is the minimum value.
The high boundary

If the high attribute is specified and a value could be parsed out of it, then the high
boundary is that value. Otherwise, the high boundary is the same as the maximum value.
If the above results in a high boundary that is higher than the maximum value, the high
boundary is the maximum value.
The optimum point

If the optimum attribute is specified and a value could be parsed out of it, then the optimum
point is that value. Otherwise, the optimum point is the midpoint between the minimum
value and the maximum value.
If the optimum point is then less than the minimum value, then the optimum point is
actually the same as the minimum value. Similarly, if the optimum point is greater than the
maximum value, then it is actually the maximum value instead.
All of which should result in the following inequalities all being true:
• minimum value ≤ actual value ≤ maximum value

• minimum value ≤ low boundary ≤ high boundary ≤ maximum value
• minimum value ≤ optimum point ≤ maximum value
UA requirements for regions of the gauge: If the optimum point is equal to the low
boundary or the high boundary, or anywhere in between them, then the region between the low
and high boundaries of the gauge must be treated as the optimum region, and the low and high
parts, if any, must be treated as suboptimal. Otherwise, if the optimum point is less than the low
166
boundary, then the region between the minimum value and the low boundary must be treated
as the optimum region, the region between the low boundary and the high boundary must be
treated as a suboptimal region, and the region between the high boundary and the maximum
value must be treated as an even less good region. Finally, if the optimum point is higher than
the high boundary, then the situation is reversed; the region between the high boundary and the
maximum value must be treated as the optimum region, the region between the high boundary
and the low boundary must be treated as a suboptimal region, and the remaining region
between the low boundary and the minimum value must be treated as an even less good region.
UA requirements for showing the gauge: When representing a meter element to the user,
the UA should indicate the relative position of the actual value to the minimum and maximum
values, and the relationship between the actual value and the three regions of the gauge.
The following markup:
<h3>Suggested groups</h3>
<menu type="toolbar">
<a href="?cmd=hsg" onclick="hideSuggestedGroups()">Hide suggested
groups</a>
</menu>
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href="/group/comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets/
view">comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets</a> -
<a href="/group/comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets/
subscribe">join</a></p>
<p>Group description: <strong>Layout/presentation on the
WWW.</strong></p>
<p><meter value="0.5">Moderate activity,</meter> Usenet, 618
subscribers</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="/group/netscape.public.mozilla.xpinstall/
view">netscape.public.mozilla.xpinstall</a> -
<a href="/group/netscape.public.mozilla.xpinstall/
subscribe">join</a></p>
<p>Group description: <strong>Mozilla XPInstall discussion.</strong></p>
<p><meter value="0.25">Low activity,</meter> Usenet, 22 subscribers</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="/group/mozilla.dev.general/view">mozilla.dev.general</a> -
<a href="/group/mozilla.dev.general/subscribe">join</a></p>
<p><meter value="0.25">Low activity,</meter> Usenet, 66 subscribers</p>
</li>
</ul>
Might be rendered as follows:
167
User agents may combine the value of the title attribute and the other attributes to provide
context-sensitive help or inline text detailing the actual values.
For example, the following snippet:
<meter min=0 max=60 value=23.2 title=seconds></meter>
...might cause the user agent to display a gauge with a tooltip saying "Value: 23.2 out of
60." on one line and "seconds" on a second line.
The min, max, value, low, high, and optimum DOM attributes must reflect (page 55) the
elements' content attributes of the same name. When the relevant content attributes are
absent, the DOM attributes must return zero. The value parsed from the textContent never
affects the DOM values.
Would be cool to have the value DOM attribute update the textContent in-line...
4.5.13 The code element
Categories

Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The code element represents a fragment of computer code. This could be an XML element
name, a filename, a computer program, or any other string that a computer would recognize.
168
Although there is no formal way to indicate the language of computer code being marked up,
authors who wish to mark code elements with the language used, e.g. so that syntax
highlighting scripts can use the right rules, may do so by adding a class prefixed with
"language-" to the element.
The following example shows how the element can be used in a paragraph to mark up
element names and computer code, including punctuation.
<p>The <code>code</code> element represents a fragment of computer

code.</p>
<p>When you call the <code>activate()</code> method on the

<code>robotSnowman</code> object, the eyes glow.</p>
<p>The example below uses the <code>begin</code> keyword to indicate

the start of a statement block. It is paired with an <code>end</code>
keyword, which is followed by the <code>.</code> punctuation character
(full stop) to indicate the end of the program.</p>
The following example shows how a block of code could be marked up using the pre and
code elements.
<pre><code class="language-pascal">var i: Integer;

begin
i := 1;
end.</code></pre>
A class is used in that example to indicate the language used.
Note: See the pre element for more details.
4.5.14 The var element
Categories

Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
169
The var element represents a variable. This could be an actual variable in a mathematical
expression or programming context, or it could just be a term used as a placeholder in prose.
In the paragraph below, the letter "n" is being used as a variable in prose:
<p>If there are <var>n</var> pipes leading to the ice

cream factory then I expect at <em>least</em> <var>n</var>
flavours of ice cream to be available for purchase!</p>
4.5.15 The samp element
Categories

Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The samp element represents (sample) output from a program or computing system.
Note: See the pre and kbd elements for more details.
This example shows the samp element being used inline:
<p>The computer said <samp>Too much cheese in tray

two</samp> but I didn't know what that meant.</p>
This second example shows a block of sample output. Nested samp and kbd elements allow
for the styling of specific elements of the sample output using a style sheet.
<pre><samp><samp class="prompt">jdoe@mowmow:~$</samp> <kbd>ssh

demo.example.com</kbd>
Last login: Tue Apr 12 09:10:17 2005 from mowmow.example.com on pts/1
Linux demo
2.6.10-grsec+gg3+e+fhs6b+nfs+gr0501+++p3+c4a+gr2b-reslog-v6.189 #1 SMP
Tue Feb 1 11:22:36 PST 2005 i686 unknown
<samp class="prompt">jdoe@demo:~$</samp> <samp

class="cursor">_</samp></samp></pre>
170
4.5.16 The kbd element
Categories

Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The kbd element represents user input (typically keyboard input, although it may also be used to
represent other input, such as voice commands).
When the kbd element is nested inside a samp element, it represents the input as it was echoed
by the system.
When the kbd element contains a samp element, it represents input based on system output, for
example invoking a menu item.
When the kbd element is nested inside another kbd element, it represents an actual key or other
single unit of input as appropriate for the input mechanism.
Here the kbd element is used to indicate keys to press:
<p>To make George eat an apple, press

<kbd><kbd>Shift</kbd>+<kbd>F3</kbd></kbd></p>
In this second example, the user is told to pick a particular menu item. The outer kbd
element marks up a block of input, with the inner kbd elements representing each individual
step of the input, and the samp elements inside them indicating that the steps are input
based on something being displayed by the system, in this case menu labels:
<p>To make George eat an apple, select

<kbd><kbd><samp>File</samp></kbd>|<kbd><samp>Eat
Apple...</samp></kbd></kbd>
</p>
4.5.17 The sub and sup elements
Categories
171
Contexts in which these elements may be used:
Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The sup element represents a superscript and the sub element represents a subscript.
These elements must be used only to mark up typographical conventions with specific
meanings, not for typographical presentation for presentation's sake. For example, it would be
inappropriate for the sub and sup elements to be used in the name of the LaTeX document
preparation system. In general, authors should use these elements only if the absence of those
elements would change the meaning of the content.
When the sub element is used inside a var element, it represents the subscript that identifies
the variable in a family of variables.
<p>The coordinate of the <var>i</var>th point is

(<var>x<sub><var>i</var></sub></var>,
<var>y<sub><var>i</var></sub></var>).
For example, the 10th point has coordinate
(<var>x<sub>10</sub></var>, <var>y<sub>10</sub></var>).</p>
In certain languages, superscripts are part of the typographical conventions for some
abbreviations.
<p>The most beautiful women are

<span lang="fr"><abbr>M<sup>lle</sup></abbr> Gwendoline</span> and
<span lang="fr"><abbr>M<sup>me</sup></abbr> Denise</span>.</p>
Mathematical expressions often use subscripts and superscripts. Authors are encouraged to use
MathML for marking up mathematics, but authors may opt to use sub and sup if detailed
mathematical markup is not desired. [MathML]
<var>E</var>=<var>m</var><var>c</var><sup>2</sup>
f(<var>x</var>, <var>n</var>) =
log<sub>4</sub><var>x</var><sup><var>n</var></sup>
172
4.5.18 The span element
Categories

Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The span element doesn't mean anything on its own, but can be useful when used together with
other attributes, e.g. class, lang, or dir.
4.5.19 The i element
Categories

Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The i element represents a span of text in an alternate voice or mood, or otherwise offset from
the normal prose, such as a taxonomic designation, a technical term, an idiomatic phrase from
another language, a thought, a ship name, or some other prose whose typical typographic
presentation is italicized.
Terms in languages different from the main text should be annotated with lang attributes
(xml:lang in XML).
The examples below show uses of the i element:
<p>The <i class="taxonomy">Felis silvestris catus</i> is cute.</p>

<p>The term <i>prose content</i> is defined above.</p>
<p>There is a certain <i lang="fr">je ne sais quoi</i> in the air.</p>
173
In the following example, a dream sequence is marked up using i elements.
<p>Raymond tried to sleep.</p>

<p><i>The ship sailed away on Thursday</i>, he
dreamt. <i>The ship had many people aboard, including a beautiful
princess called Carey. He watched her, day-in, day-out, hoping she
would notice him, but she never did.</i></p>
<p><i>Finally one night he picked up the courage to speak with
her—</i></p>
<p>Raymond woke with a start as the fire alarm rang out.</p>
The i element should be used as a last resort when no other element is more appropriate. In
particular, citations should use the cite element, defining instances of terms should use the dfn
element, stress emphasis should use the em element, importance should be denoted with the
strong element, quotes should be marked up with the q element, and small print should use the
small element.
Authors are encouraged to use the class attribute on the i element to identify why the element
is being used, so that if the style of a particular use (e.g. dream sequences as opposed to
taxonomic terms) is to be changed at a later date, the author doesn't have to go through the
entire document (or series of related documents) annotating each use.
Note: Style sheets can be used to format i elements, just like any other
element can be restyled. Thus, it is not the case that content in i elements will
necessarily be italicized.
4.5.20 The b element
Categories

Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The b element represents a span of text to be stylistically offset from the normal prose without
conveying any extra importance, such as key words in a document abstract, product names in a
review, or other spans of text whose typical typographic presentation is boldened.
174
The following example shows a use of the b element to highlight key words without marking
them up as important:
<p>The <b>frobonitor</b> and <b>barbinator</b> components are fried.</p>
In the following example, objects in a text adventure are highlighted as being special by use
of the b element.
<p>You enter a small room. Your <b>sword</b> glows

brighter. A <b>rat</b> scurries past the corner wall.</p>
Another case where the b element is appropriate is in marking up the lede (or lead)
sentence or paragraph. The following example shows how a BBC article about kittens
adopting a rabbit as their own could be marked up using HTML5 elements:
<article>
<h2>Kittens 'adopted' by pet rabbit</h2>
<p><b>Six abandoned kittens have found an unexpected new
mother figure — a pet rabbit.</b></p>
<p>Veterinary nurse Melanie Humble took the three-week-old
kittens to her Aberdeen home.</p>
[...]
The b element should be used as a last resort when no other element is more appropriate. In
particular, headers should use the h1 to h6 elements, stress emphasis should use the em
element, importance should be denoted with the strong element, and text marked or
highlighted should use the mark element.
The following would be incorrect usage:
<p><b>WARNING!</b> Do not frob the barbinator!</p>
In the previous example, the correct element to use would have been strong, not b.
Note: Style sheets can be used to format b elements, just like any other
element can be restyled. Thus, it is not the case that content in b elements will
necessarily be boldened.
4.5.21 The bdo element
Categories

Content model:
175
None, but the dir global attribute has special requirements on this element.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The bdo element allows authors to override the Unicode bidi algorithm by explicitly specifying a
direction override. [BIDI]
Authors must specify the dir attribute on this element, with the value ltr to specify a
left-to-right override and with the value rtl to specify a right-to-left override.
If the element has the dir attribute set to the exact value ltr, then for the purposes of the bidi
algorithm, the user agent must act as if there was a U+202D LEFT-TO-RIGHT OVERRIDE
character at the start of the element, and a U+202C POP DIRECTIONAL FORMATTING at the end
of the element.
If the element has the dir attribute set to the exact value rtl, then for the purposes of the bidi
algorithm, the user agent must act as if there was a U+202E RIGHT-TO-LEFT OVERRIDE
character at the start of the element, and a U+202C POP DIRECTIONAL FORMATTING at the end
of the element.
The requirements on handling the bdo element for the bidi algorithm may be implemented
indirectly through the style layer. For example, an HTML+CSS user agent should implement
these requirements by implementing the CSS unicode-bidi property. [CSS21]
4.5.22 The ruby element
Categories

Content model:
One or more groups of: phrasing content (page 90) followed either by a single rt element,
or an rp element, an rt element, and another rp element.
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The ruby element allows one or more spans of phrasing content to be marked with ruby
annotations.
176
A ruby element represents the spans of phrasing content it contains, ignoring all the child rt
and rp elements and their descendants. Those spans of phrasing content have associated
annotations created using the rt element.
In this example, each ideograph in the text ???? is annotated with its reading.
... <ruby>
? <rt> ?? </rt>
? <rt> ?? </rt>
? <rt> ?? </rt>
? <rt> ? </rt>
</ruby> ...
This might be rendered as:
4.5.23 The rt element
Categories
None.

As a child of a ruby element.
Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The rt element marks the ruby text component of a ruby annotation.
An rt element that is a child of a ruby element represents an annotation (given by its children)
for the zero or more nodes of phrasing content that immediately precedes it in the ruby
element, ignoring rp elements.
An rt element that is not a child of a ruby element represents the same thing as its children.
177
4.5.24 The rp element
Categories
None.

As a child of a ruby element, either immediately before or immediately after an rt
element.
Content model:
If the rp element is immediately after an rt element that is immediately preceded by
another rp element: a single character from Unicode character class Pe.
Otherwise: a single character from Unicode character class Ps.
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The rp element can be used to provide parentheses around a ruby text component of a ruby
annotation, to be shown by user agents that don't support ruby annotations.
An rp element that is a child of a ruby element represents nothing and it and its contents must
be ignored. An rp element whose parent element is not a ruby element represents the same
thing as its children.
The example above, in which each ideograph in the text ???? is annotated with its reading,
could be expanded to use rp so that in legacy user agentthe readings are in parentheses:
... <ruby>
? <rp>(</rp><rt>??</rt><rp>)</rp>
? <rp>(</rp><rt>??</rt><rp>)</rp>
? <rp>(</rp><rt>??</rt><rp>)</rp>
? <rp>(</rp><rt>?</rt><rp>)</rp>
</ruby> ...
In conforming user agents the rendering would be as above, but in user agents that do not
support ruby, the rendering would be:
... ? (??) ? (??) ? (??) ? (?) ...
4.5.25 Usage summary
We need to summarize the various elements, in particular to distinguish b/i/em/strong/var/q/

mark/cite.
178
4.5.26 Footnotes
HTML does not have a dedicated mechanism for marking up footnotes. Here are the
recommended alternatives.
For short inline annotations, the title attribute should be used.
In this example, two parts of a dialog are annotated.
<dialog>
<dt>Customer
<dd>Hello! I wish to register a complaint. Hello. Miss?
<dt>Shopkeeper
<dd><span title="Colloquial pronunciation of 'What do you'"
>Watcha</span> mean, miss?
<dt>Customer
<dd>Uh, I'm sorry, I have a cold. I wish to make a complaint.
<dt>Shopkeeper
<dd>Sorry, <span title="This is, of course, a lie.">we're
closing for lunch</span>.
</dialog>
For longer annotations, the a element should be used, pointing to an element later in the
document. The convention is that the contents of the link be a number in square brackets.
In this example, a footnote in the dialog links to a paragraph below the dialog. The
paragraph then reciprocally links back to the dialog, allowing the user to return to the
location of the footnote.
<dialog>
<dt>Announcer
<dd>Number 16: The <i>hand</i>.
<dt>Interviewer
<dd>Good evening. I have with me in the studio tonight Mr
Norman St John Polevaulter, who for the past few years has
been contradicting people. Mr Polevaulter, why <em>do</em>
you contradict people?
<dt>Norman
<dd>I don't. <a href="#fn1" id="r1">[1]</a>
<dt>Interviewer
<dd>You told me you did!
</dialog>
<section>
<p id="fn1"><a href="#r1">[1]</a> This is, naturally, a lie,
but paradoxically if it were true he could not say so without
contradicting the interviewer and thus making it false.</p>
</section>
For side notes, longer annotations that apply to entire sections of the text rather than just
specific words or sentences, the aside element should be used.
179
In this example, a sidebar is given after a dialog, giving some context to the dialog.
<dialog>
<dt>Customer
<dd>I will not buy this record, it is scratched.
<dt>Shopkeeper
<dd>I'm sorry?
<dt>Customer
<dd>I will not buy this record, it is scratched.
<dt>Shopkeeper
<dd>No no no, this's'a tobacconist's.
</dialog>
<aside>
<p>In 1970, the British Empire lay in ruins, and foreign
nationalists frequented the streets — many of them Hungarians
(not the streets — the foreign nationals). Sadly, Alexander
Yalt has been publishing incompetently-written phrase books.
</aside>
4.6 Edits
The ins and del elements represent edits to the document.
4.6.1 The ins element
Categories
When the element only contains phrasing content (page 90): phrasing content (page 90).

When the element only contains phrasing content (page 90): where phrasing content
(page 90) is expected.
Otherwise: where flow content (page 89) is expected.
Content model:
Transparent (page 91).
cite
datetime
DOM interface:
Uses the HTMLModElement interface.
The ins element represents an addition to the document.
The following represents the addition of a single paragraph:
180
<aside>
<ins>
<p> I like fruit. </p>
</ins>
</aside>
As does this, because everything in the aside element here counts as phrasing content
(page 90) and therefore there is just one paragraph (page 92):
<aside>
<ins>
Apples are <em>tasty</em>.
</ins>
<ins>
So are pears.
</ins>
</aside>
ins elements should not cross implied paragraph (page 92) boundaries.
The following example represents the addition of two paragraphs, the second of which was
inserted in two parts. The first ins element in this example thus crosses a paragraph
boundary, which is considered poor form.
<aside>
<ins datetime="2005-03-16T00:00Z">
</ins>
<ins datetime="2007-12-19T00:00Z">
So are pears.
</ins>
</aside>
Here is a better way of marking this up. It uses more elements, but none of the elements
cross implied paragraph boundaries.
<aside>
<ins datetime="2005-03-16T00:00Z">
</ins>
<ins datetime="2005-03-16T00:00Z">
</ins>
<ins datetime="2007-12-19T00:00Z">
So are pears.
</ins>
</aside>
181
4.6.2 The del element
Categories
When the element only contains phrasing content (page 90): phrasing content (page 90).

When the element only contains phrasing content (page 90): where phrasing content
(page 90) is expected.
Otherwise: where flow content (page 89) is expected.
Content model:
cite
datetime
DOM interface:
Uses the HTMLModElement interface.
The del element represents a removal from the document.
del elements should not cross implied paragraph (page 92) boundaries.
4.6.3 Attributes common to ins and del elements
The cite attribute may be used to specify the address of a document that explains the change.
When that document is long, for instance the minutes of a meeting, authors are encouraged to
include a fragment identifier pointing to the specific part of that document that discusses the
change.
If the cite attribute is present, it must be a valid URL (page 29) that explains the change. User
agents should allow users to follow such citation links.
The datetime attribute may be used to specify the time and date of the change.
If present, the datetime attribute must be a valid datetime (page 44) value.
User agents must parse the datetime attribute according to the parse a string as a datetime
value (page 45) algorithm. If that doesn't return a time, then the modification has no associated
timestamp (the value is non-conforming; it is not a valid datetime (page 44)). Otherwise, the
modification is marked as having been made at the given datetime. User agents should use the
associated timezone information to determine which timezone to present the given datetime in.
The ins and del elements must implement the HTMLModElement interface:
interface HTMLModElement : HTMLElement {

attribute DOMString cite;
182
attribute DOMString dateTime;
};
The cite DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the element's cite content attribute. The
dateTime DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the element's datetime content attribute.
4.6.4 Edits and paragraphs
Since the ins and del elements do not affect paragraphing (page 92), it is possible, in some
cases where paragraphs are implied (page 92) (without explicit p elements), for an ins or del
element to span both an entire paragraph or other non-phrasing content (page 90) elements and
part of another paragraph.
For example:
<section>
<ins>
<p>
This is a paragraph that was inserted.
</p>
This is another paragraph whose first sentence was inserted
at the same time as the paragraph above.
</ins>
This is a second sentence, which was there all along.
</section>
By only wrapping some paragraphs in p elements, one can even get the end of one paragraph, a
whole second paragraph, and the start of a third paragraph to be covered by the same ins or
del element (though this is very confusing, and not considered good practice):
<section>
This is the first paragraph. <ins>This sentence was
inserted.
<p>This second paragraph was inserted.</p>
This sentence was inserted too.</ins> This is the
third paragraph in this example.
</section>
However, due to the way implied paragraphs (page 92) are defined, it is not possible to mark up
the end of one paragraph and the start of the very next one using the same ins or del element.
You instead have to use one (or two) p element(s) and two ins or del elements:
For example:
<section>
<p>This is the first paragraph. <del>This sentence was
deleted.</del></p>
<p><del>This sentence was deleted too.</del> That
183
sentence needed a separate <del> element.</p>
</section>
Partly because of the confusion described above, authors are strongly recommended to always
mark up all paragraphs with the p element, and to not have any ins or del elements that cross
across any implied paragraphs (page 92).
4.6.5 Edits and lists
The content models of the ol and ul elements do not allow ins and del elements as children.
Lists always represent all their items, including items that would otherwise have been marked as
deleted.
To indicate that an item is inserted or deleted, an ins or del element can be wrapped around
the contents of the li element. To indicate that an item has been replaced by another, a single
li element can have one or more del elements followed by one or more ins elements.
In the following example, a list that started empty had items added and removed from it
over time. The bits in the example that have been emphasised show the parts that are the
"current" state of the list. The list item numbers don't take into account the edits, though.
<h1>Stop-ship bugs</h1>
<ol>
<li><ins datetime="2008-02-12 15:20 Z">Bug 225: Rain detector
doesn't work in snow</ins></li>
<li><del datetime="2008-03-01 20:22 Z"><ins datetime="2008-02-14
12:02 Z">Bug 228: Water buffer overflows in April</ins></del></li>
<li><ins datetime="2008-02-16 13:50 Z">Bug 230: Water heater
doesn't use renewable fuels</ins></li>
<li><del datetime="2008-02-20 21:15 Z"><ins datetime="2008-02-16
14:25 Z">Bug 232: Carbon dioxide emissions detected after
startup</ins></del></li>
</ol>
In the following example, a list that started with just fruit was replaced by a list with just
colors.
<h1>List of <del>fruits</del><ins>colors</ins></h1>
<ul>
<li><del>Lime</del><ins>Green</ins></li>
<li><del>Apple</del></li>
<li>Orange</li>
<li><del>Pear</del></li>
<li><ins>Teal</ins></li>
<li><del>Lemon</del><ins>Yellow</ins></li>
<li>Olive</li>
<li><ins>Purple</ins>
</ul>
184
4.7 Embedded content
4.7.1 The figure element
Categories

Content model:
Either: one legend element followed by flow content (page 89).
Or: Flow content (page 89) followed by one legend element.
Or: Flow content (page 89).
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The figure element represents some flow content (page 89), optionally with a caption, which
can be moved away from the main flow of the document without affecting the document's
meaning.
The element can thus be used to annotate illustrations, diagrams, photos, code listings, etc, that
are referred to from the main content of the document, but that could, without affecting the flow
of the document, be moved away from that primary content, e.g. to the side of the page, to
dedicated pages, or to an appendix.
The first legend element child of the element, if any, represents the caption of the figure
element's contents. If there is no child legend element, then there is no caption.
The remainder of the element's contents, if any, represents the content.
This example shows the figure element to mark up a code listing.
<p>In <a href="#l4">listing 4</a> we see the primary core interface

API declaration.</p>
<figure id="l4">
<legend>Listing 4. The primary core interface API declaration.</legend>
<pre><code>interface PrimaryCore {
boolean verifyDataLine();
void sendData(in sequence<byte> data);
void initSelfDestruct();
}</code></pre>
</figure>
<p>The API is designed to use UTF-8.</p>
185
Here we see a figure element to mark up a photo.
<figure>
<img src="bubbles-work.jpeg"
alt="Bubbles, sitting in his office chair, works on his
latest project intently.">
<legend>Bubbles at work</legend>
</figure>
In this example, we see an image that is not a figure, as well as an image and a video that
are.
<h2>Malinko's comics</h2>
<p>This case centered on some sort of "intellectual property"

infringement related to a comic (see Exhibit A). The suit started
after a trailer ending with these words:</p>
<img src="promblem-packed-action.png" alt="ROUGH COPY! Promblem-Packed

Action!">
<p>...was aired. A lawyer, armed with a Bigger Notebook, launched a

preemptive strike using snowballs. A complete copy of the trailer is
included with Exhibit B.</p>
<figure>
<img src="ex-a.png" alt="Two squiggles on a dirty piece of paper.">
<legend>Exhibit A. The alleged <cite>rough copy</cite> comic.</legend>
</figure>
<figure>
<video src="ex-b.mov"></video>
<legend>Exhibit A. The alleged <cite>rough copy</cite> comic.</legend>
</figure>
<p>The case was resolved out of court.</p>
Here, a part of a poem is marked up using figure.
<figure>
<p>'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves<br>
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;<br>
All mimsy were the borogoves,<br>
And the mome raths outgrabe.</p>
<legend><cite>Jabberwocky</cite> (first verse). Lewis Carroll,
1832-98</legend>
</figure>
186
In this example, which could be part of a much larger work discussing a castle, the figure
has three images in it.
<figure>
<img src="castle1423.jpeg" title="Etching. Anonymous, ca. 1423."
alt="The castle has one tower, and a tall wall around it.">
<img src="castle1858.jpeg" title="Oil-based paint on canvas. Maria
Towle, 1858."
alt="The castle now has two towers and two walls.">
<img src="castle1999.jpeg" title="Film photograph. Peter Jankle, 1999."
alt="The castle lies in ruins, the original tower all that remains
in one piece.">
<legend>The castle through the ages: 1423, 1858, and 1999
respectively.</legend>
</figure>
4.7.2 The img element
Categories
Embedded content (page 90).

Where embedded content (page 90) is expected.
Content model:
Empty.
alt
src
usemap
ismap
width
height
DOM interface:
interface HTMLImageElement : HTMLElement {

attribute DOMString alt;
attribute DOMString src;
attribute DOMString useMap;
attribute boolean isMap;
attribute long width;
attribute long height;
readonly attribute boolean complete;
};
187
Note: An instance of HTMLImageElement can be obtained using the Image
constructor.
An img element represents an image.
The image given by the src attribute is the embedded content, and the value of the alt
attribute is the img element's fallback content (page 91).
Authoring requirements: The src attribute must be present, and must contain a valid URL
(page 29).
Should we restrict the URL to pointing to an image? What's an image? Is PDF an image?
(Safari supports PDFs in <img> elements.) How about SVG? (Opera supports those). WMFs?
XPMs? HTML?
The requirements for the alt attribute depend on what the image is intended to represent:
A phrase or paragraph with an alternative graphical representation

Sometimes something can be more clearly stated in graphical form, for example as a
flowchart, a diagram, a graph, or a simple map showing directions. In such cases, an image
can be given using the img element, but the lesser textual version must still be given, so
that users who are unable to view the image (e.g. because they have a very slow
connection, or because they are using a text-only browser, or because they are listening to
the page being read out by a hands-free automobile voice Web browser, or simply because
they are blind) are still able to understand the message being conveyed.
The text must be given in the alt attribute, and must convey the same message as the
image specified in the src attribute.
In the following example we have a flowchart in image form, with text in the alt
attribute rephrasing the flowchart in prose form:
<p>In the common case, the data handled by the tokenisation stage
comes from the network, but it can also come from script.</p>
<p><img src="images/parsing-model-overview.png" alt="The network
passes data to the Tokeniser stage, which passes data to the Tree
Construction stage. From there, data goes to both the DOM and to
Script Execution. Script Execution is linked to the DOM, and, using
document.write(), passes data to the Tokeniser."></p>
Here's another example, showing a good solution and a bad solution to the problem of
including an image in a description.
First, here's the good solution. This sample shows how the alternative text should just
be what you would have put in the prose if the image had never existed.


<p>
188
You are standing in an open field west of a house.
<img src="house.jpeg" alt="The house is white, with a boarded front
door.">
</p>
Second, here's the bad solution. In this incorrect way of doing things, the alternative
text is simply a description of the image, instead of a textual replacement for the
image. It's bad because when the image isn't shown, the text doesn't flow as well as in
the first example.


<p>
You are standing in an open field west of a house.
<img src="house.jpeg" alt="A white house, with a boarded front
door.">
</p>
It is important to realize that the alternative text is a replacement for the image, not a
description of the image.
Icons: a short phrase or label with an alternative graphical representation

A document can contain information in iconic form. The icon is intended to help users of
visual browsers to recognize features at a glance.
In some cases, the icon is supplemental to a text label conveying the same meaning. In
those cases, the alt attribute must be present but must be empty.
Here the icons are next to text that conveys the same meaning, so they have an empty
alt attribute:
<nav>
<p><a href="/help/"><img src="/icons/help.png" alt=""> Help</a></p>
<p><a href="/configure/"><img src="/icons/configuration.png" alt="">
Configuration Tools</a></p>
</nav>
In other cases, the icon has no text next to it describing what it means; the icon is supposed
to be self-explanatory. In those cases, an equivalent textual label must be given in the alt
attribute.
Here, posts on a news site are labeled with an icon indicating their topic.
<body>
<article>
<header>
<h1>Ratatouille wins <i>Best Movie of the Year</i> award</h1>
<p><img src="movies.png" alt="Movies"></p>
</header>
<p>Pixar has won yet another <i>Best Movie of the Year</i> award,
making this its 8th win in the last 12 years.</p>
</article>
189
<article>
<header>
<h1>Latest TWiT episode is online</h1>
<p><img src="podcasts.png" alt="Podcasts"></p>
</header>
<p>The latest TWiT episode has been posted, in which we hear
several tech news stories as well as learning much more about the
iPhone. This week, the panelists compare how reflective their
iPhones' Apple logos are.</p>
</article>
</body>
Many pages include logos, insignia, flags, or emblems, which stand for a particular entity
such as a company, organization, project, band, software package, country, or some such.
If the logo is being used to represent the entity, the alt attribute must contain the name of
the entity being represented by the logo. The alt attribute must not contain text like the
word "logo", as it is not the fact that it is a logo that is being conveyed, it's the entity itself.
If the logo is being used next to the name of the entity that it represents, then the logo is
supplemental, and its alt attribute must instead be empty.
If the logo is merely used as decorative material (as branding, or, for example, as a side
image in an article that mentions the entity to which the logo belongs), then the entry below
on purely decorative images applies. If the logo is actually being discussed, then it is being
used as a phrase or paragraph (the description of the logo) with an alternative graphical
representation (the logo itself), and the first entry above applies.
In the following snippets, all four of the above cases are present. First, we see a logo
used to represent a company:
<h1><img src="XYZ.gif" alt="The XYZ company"></h1>

Next, we see a paragraph which uses a logo right next to the company name, and so
doesn't have any alternative text:
<article>
<h2>News</h2>
<p>We have recently been looking at buying the <img src="alpha.gif"
alt=""> ΑΒΓ company, a small Greek company
specializing in our type of product.</p>
In this third snippet, we have a logo being used in an aside, as part of the larger article
discussing the acquisition:
<aside><p><img src="alpha-large.gif" alt=""></p></aside>

<p>The ΑΒΓ company has had a good quarter, and our
pie chart studies of their accounts suggest a much bigger blue slice
than its green and orange slices, which is always a good sign.</p>
</article>
Finally, we have an opinion piece talking about a logo, and the logo is therefore
described in detail in the alternative text.
190
<p>Consider for a moment their logo:</p>
<p><img src="/images/logo" alt="It consists of a green circle with a

green question mark centered inside it."></p>
<p>How unoriginal can you get? I mean, oooooh, a question mark, how
<em>revolutionary</em>, how utterly <em>ground-breaking</em>, I'm
sure everyone will rush to adopt those specifications now! They could
at least have tried for some sort of, I don't know, sequence of
rounded squares with varying shades of green and bold white outlines,
at least that would look good on the cover of a blue book.</p>
This example shows how the alternative text should be written such that if the image
isn't available, and the text is used instead, the text flows seamlessly into the
surrounding text, as if the image had never been there in the first place.
A graphical representation of some of the surrounding text

In many cases, the image is actually just supplementary, and its presence merely reinforces
the surrounding text. In these cases, the alt attribute must be present but its value must
be the empty string.
A flowchart that repeats the previous paragraph in graphical form:
<p>The network passes data to the Tokeniser stage, which

passes data to the Tree Construction stage. From there, data goes
to both the DOM and to Script Execution. Script Execution is
linked to the DOM, and, using document.write(), passes data to
the Tokeniser.</p>
<p><img src="images/parsing-model-overview.png" alt=""></p>
A graph that repeats the previous paragraph in graphical form:
<p>According to a study covering several billion pages,

about 62% of documents on the Web in 2007 triggered the Quirks
rendering mode of Web browsers, about 30% triggered the Almost
Standards mode, and about 9% triggered the Standards mode.</p>
<p><img src="rendering-mode-pie-chart.png" alt=""></p>
In general, an image falls into this category if removing the image doesn't make the page
any less useful, but including the image makes it a lot easier for users of visual browsers to
understand the concept.
A purely decorative image that doesn't add any information but is still specific to the
surrounding content
In some cases, the image isn't discussed by the surrounding text, but it has some relevance.
Such images are decorative, but still form part of the content. In these cases, the alt
attribute must be present but its value must be the empty string.
Examples where the image is purely decorative despite being relevant would include
things like a photo of the Black Rock City landscape in a blog post about an event at
Burning Man, or an image of a painting inspired by a poem, on a page reciting that
191
poem. The following snippet shows an example of the latter case (only the first verse is
included in this snippet):
<h1>The Lady of Shalott</h1>

<p><img src="shalott.jpeg" alt=""></p>
<p>On either side the river lie<br>
Long fields of barley and of rye,<br>
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;<br>
And through the field the road run by<br>
To many-tower'd Camelot;<br>
And up and down the people go,<br>
Gazing where the lilies blow<br>
Round an island there below,<br>
The island of Shalott.</p>
In general, if an image is decorative but isn't especially page-specific, for example an image
that forms part of a site-wide design scheme, the image should be specified in the site's
CSS, not in the markup of the document.
A key part of the content

In some cases, the image is a critical part of the content. This could be the case, for
instance, on a page that is part of a photo gallery. The image is the whole point of the page
containing it.
When it is possible for alternative text to be provided, for example if the image is part of a
series of screenshots in a magazine review, or part of a comic strip, or is a photograph in a
blog entry about that photograph, text that conveys can serve as a substitute for the image
must be given as the contents of the alt attribute.
In a rare subset of these cases, there might be no alternative text available. This could be
the case, for instance, on a photo upload site, if the site has received 8000 photos from a
user without the user annotating any of them. In such cases, the alt attribute may be
omitted, but the alt attribute should be included, with a useful value, if at all possible.
In any case, if an image is a key part of the content, the alt attribute must not be specified
with an empty value.
A screenshot in a gallery of screenshots for a new OS, with some alternative text:
<figure>
<img src="KDE%20Light%20desktop.png"
alt="The desktop is blue, with icons along the left hand side in
two columns, reading System, Home, K-Mail, etc. A window is
open showing that menus wrap to a second line if they
cannot fit in the window. The window has a list of icons
along the top, with an address bar below it, a list of
icons for tabs along the left edge, a status bar on the
bottom, and two panes in the middle. The desktop has a bar
at the bottom of the screen with a few buttons, a pager, a
list of open applications, and a clock.">
192
<legend>Screenshot of a KDE desktop.</legend>
</figure>
A photo on a photo-sharing site, if the site received the image with no metadata other
than the caption:
<figure>
<img src="1100670787_6a7c664aef.jpg">
<legend>Bubbles traveled everywhere with us.</legend>
</figure>
In this case, though, it would be better if a detailed description of the important parts of
the image obtained from the user and included on the page.
Sometimes there simply is no text that can do justice to an image. For example, there is
little that can be said to usefully describe a Rorschach inkblot test.
<figure>
<img src="/commons/a/a7/Rorschach1.jpg">
<legend>A black outline of the first of the ten cards
in the Rorschach inkblot test.</legend>
</figure>
Note that the following would be a very bad use of alternative text:


<figure>
<img src="/commons/a/a7/Rorschach1.jpg" alt="A black outline
of the first of the ten cards in the Rorschach inkblot test.">
<legend>A black outline of the first of the ten cards
in the Rorschach inkblot test.</legend>
</figure>
Including the caption in the alternative text like this isn't useful because it effectively
duplicates the caption for users who don't have images, taunting them twice yet not
helping them any more than if they had only read or heard the caption once.
Note: Since some users cannot use images at all (e.g. because they have a
very slow connection, or because they are using a text-only browser, or
because they are listening to the page being read out by a hands-free
automobile voice Web browser, or simply because they are blind), the alt
attribute is only allowed to be omitted when no alternative text is
available and none can be made available, e.g. on automated image
gallery sites.
An image in an e-mail or document intended for a specific person who is known to be

able to view images
When an image is included in a communication (such as an HTML e-mail) aimed at someone
who is known to be able to view images, the alt attribute may be omitted. However, even
in such cases it is strongly recommended that alternative text be included (as appropriate
according to the kind of image involved, as described in the above entries), so that the
e-mail is still usable should the user use a mail client that does not support images, or
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should the e-mail be forwarded on to other users whose abilities might not include easily
seeing images.
The img must not be used as a layout tool. In particular, img elements should not be used to
display fully transparent images, as they rarely convey meaning and rarely add anything useful
to the document.
There has been some suggestion that the longdesc attribute from HTML4, or some other
mechanism that is more powerful than alt="", should be included. This has not yet been
considered.
User agent requirements: When the alt attribute is present and its value is the empty string,
the image supplements the surrounding content. In such cases, the image may be omitted
without affecting the meaning of the document.
When the alt attribute is present and its value is not the empty string, the image is a graphical
equivalent of the string given in the alt attribute. In such cases, the image may be replaced in
the rendering by the string given in the attribute without significantly affecting the meaning of
the document.
When the alt attribute is missing, the image represents a key part of the content. Non-visual
user agents should apply image analysis heuristics to help the user make sense of the image.
The alt attribute does not represent advisory information. User agents must not present the
contents of the alt attribute in the same way as content of the title attribute.
If the src attribute is omitted, the image represents whatever string is given by the element's
alt attribute, if any, or nothing, if that attribute is empty or absent.
When an img is created with a src attribute, and whenever the src attribute is set subsequently,
the user agent must fetch the resource specifed by the src attribute's value, unless the user
agent cannot support images, or its support for images has been disabled.
Fetching the image must delay the load event (page 593).
⚠Warning! This, unfortunately, can be used to perform a rudimentary port scan of

the user's local network (especially in conjunction with scripting, though scripting
isn't actually necessary to carry out such an attack). User agents may implement
cross-origin (page 363) access control policies that mitigate this attack.
Once the resource has been fetched, if the image is a valid image, the user agent must fire a
load event (page 375) on the img element (this happens after complete starts returning true). If
the download fails or it completes but the image is not a valid or supported image, the user
agent must fire an error event (page 375) on the img element.
The remote server's response metadata (e.g. an HTTP 404 status code, or associated
Content-Type headers (page 63)) must be ignored when determining whether the resource
obtained is a valid image or not.
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Note: This allows servers to return images with error responses.
User agents must not support non-image resources with the img element.
The usemap attribute, if present, can indicate that the image has an associated image map (page
273).
The ismap attribute, when used on an element that is a descendant of an a element with an
href attribute, indicates by its presence that the element provides access to a server-side image
map. This affects how events are handled on the corresponding a element.
The ismap attribute is a boolean attribute (page 37). The attribute must not be specified on an
element that does not have an ancestor a element with an href attribute.
The img element supports dimension attributes (page 277).
The DOM attributes alt, src, useMap, and isMap each must reflect (page 55) the respective
content attributes of the same name.
The DOM attributes height and width must return the rendered height and width of the image,
in CSS pixels, if the image is being rendered, and is being rendered to a visual medium, or 0
otherwise. [CSS21]
The DOM attribute complete must return true if the user agent has downloaded the image
specified in the src attribute, and it is a valid image, and false otherwise.
Note: The value of complete can change while a script is executing.
A single image can have different appropriate alternative text depending on the context.
In each of the following cases, the same image is used, yet the alt text is different each
time. The image is the coat of arms of the Canton Geneva in Switzerland.
Here it is used as a supplementary icon:
<p>I lived in <img src="carouge.svg" alt=""> Carouge.</p>
Here it is used as an icon representing the town:
<p>Home town: <img src="carouge.svg" alt="Carouge"></p>
Here it is used as part of a text on the town:
<p>Carouge has a coat of arms.</p>

<p><img src="carouge.svg" alt="The coat of arms depicts a lion, sitting
in front of a tree."></p>
<p>It is used as decoration all over the town.</p>
Here it is used as a way to support a similar text where the description is given as well as,
instead of as an alternative to, the image:
195
<p>Carouge has a coat of arms.</p>
<p><img src="carouge.svg" alt=""></p>
<p>The coat of arms depicts a lion, sitting in front of a tree.
It is used as decoration all over the town.</p>
Here it is used as part of a story:
<p>He picked up the folder and a piece of paper fell out.</p>

<p><img src="carouge.svg" alt="Shaped like a shield, the paper had a
red background, a green tree, and a yellow lion with its tongue
hanging out and whose tail was shaped like an S."></p>
<p>He stared at the folder. S! The answer he had been looking for all
this time was simply the letter S! How had he not seen that before? It all
came together now. The phone call where Hector had referred to a lion's
tail,
the time Marco had stuck his tongue out...</p>
Here are some more examples showing the same picture used in different contexts, with
different appropriate alternate texts each time.
<article>
<h1>My cats</h1>
<h2>Fluffy</h2>
<p>Fluffy is my favourite.</p>
<img src="fluffy.jpg" alt="She likes playing with a ball of yarn.">
<p>She's just too cute.</p>
<h2>Miles</h2>
<p>My other cat, Miles just eats and sleeps.</p>
</article>
<article>
<h1>Photography</h1>
<h2>Shooting moving targets indoors</h2>
<p>The trick here is to know how to anticipate; to know at what speed and
what distance the subject will pass by.</p>
<img src="fluffy.jpg" alt="A cat flying by, chasing a ball of yarn, can
be
photographed quite nicely using this technique.">
<h2>Nature by night</h2>
<p>To achieve this, you'll need either an extremely sensitive film, or
immense flash lights.</p>
</article>
<article>
<h1>About me</h1>
<h2>My pets</h2>
<p>I've got a cat named Fluffy and a dog named Miles.</p>
<img src="fluffy.jpg" alt="Fluffy, my cat, tends to keep itself busy.">
<p>My dog Miles and I like go on long walks together.</p>
<h2>music</h2>
196
<p>After our walks, having emptied my mind, I like listening to Bach.</p>
</article>
<article>
<h1>Fluffy and the Yarn</h1>
<p>Fluffy was a cat who liked to play with yarn. He also liked to
jump.</p>
<aside><img src="fluffy.jpg" alt="" title="Fluffy"></aside>
<p>He would play in the morning, he would play in the evening.</p>
</article>
4.7.3 The iframe element
Categories

Content model:
Text that conforms to the requirements given in the prose.
src
name
sandbox
seamless
width
height
DOM interface:
interface HTMLIFrameElement : HTMLElement {

attribute DOMString sandbox;
attribute boolean seamless;
};
Objects implementing the HTMLIFrameElement interface must also implement the
EmbeddingElement interface defined in the Window Object specification. [WINDOW]
The iframe element introduces a new nested browsing context (page 354).
The src attribute gives the address of a page that the nested browsing context (page 354) is to
contain. The attribute, if present, must be a valid URL (page 29). When the browsing context is
created, if the attribute is present, the user agent must navigate (page 410) the element's
197
browsing context to the given URL (page 29), with replacement enabled (page 414), and with
the iframe element's document's browsing context (page 354) as the source browsing context
(page 410). If the user navigates (page 410) away from this page, the iframe's corresponding
Window object will reference new Document objects, but the src attribute will not change.
Whenever the src attribute is set, the nested browsing context (page 354) must be navigated
(page 410) to the URL (page 29) given by that attribute's value, with the iframe element's
document's browsing context (page 354) as the source browsing context (page 410).
If the src attribute is not set when the element is created, the browsing context will remain at
the initial about:blank page.
The name attribute, if present, must be a valid browsing context name (page 357). When the
browsing context is created, if the attribute is present, the browsing context name (page 357)
must be set to the value of this attribute; otherwise, the browsing context name (page 357)
must be set to the empty string.
Whenever the name attribute is set, the nested browsing context (page 354)'s name (page 357)
must be changed to the new value. If the attribute is removed, the browsing context name (page
357) must be set to the empty string.
When content loads in an iframe, after any load events are fired within the content itself, the
user agent must fire a load event (page 375) at the iframe element. When content fails to load
(e.g. due to a network error), then the user agent must fire an error event (page 375) at the
element instead.
When there is an active parser in the iframe, and when anything in the iframe that is delaying
the load event (page 593) in the iframe's browsing context (page 354), the iframe must delay
the load event (page 593).
Note: If, during the handling of the load event, the browsing context (page
354) in the iframe is again navigated (page 410), that will further delay the
load event (page 593).
The sandbox attribute, when specified, enables a set of extra restrictions on any content hosted
by the iframe. Its value must be an unordered set of unique space-separated tokens (page 52).
The allowed values are allow-same-origin, allow-forms, and allow-scripts.
While the sandbox attribute is specified, the iframe element's nested browsing context (page
355), and all the browsing contexts nested (page 355) within it (either directly or indirectly
through other nested browsing contexts) must have the following flags set:
The sandboxed navigation browsing context flag

This flag prevents content from navigating browsing contexts other than the sandboxed
browsing context itself (page 410) (or browsing contexts further nested inside it).
This flag also prevents content from creating new auxiliary browsing contexts (page 358),
e.g. using the target attribute or the window.open() method.
198
The sandboxed plugins browsing context flag
This flag prevents content from instantiating plugins (page 28), whether using the embed
element (page 202), the object element (page 207), the applet element (page 610), or
through navigation (page 417) of a nested browsing context (page 355).
The sandboxed annoyances browsing context flag

This flag prevents content from showing notifications (page 379) outside of the nested
browsing context (page 355).
The sandboxed origin browsing context flag, unless the sandbox attribute's value,
when split on spaces (page 52), is found to have the allow-same-origin keyword set
This flag forces content into a unique origin (page 365) for the purposes of the same-origin
policy (page 363).
This flag also prevents script from reading the document.cookies DOM attribute (page 73).
The allow-same-origin attribute is intended for two cases.
First, it can be used to allow content from the same site to be sandboxed
to disable scripting, while still allowing access to the DOM of the
sandboxed content.
Second, it can be used to embed content from a third-party site,

sandboxed to prevent that site from opening popup windows, etc, without
preventing the embedded page from communicating back to its
originating site, using the database APIs to store data, etc.
The sandboxed forms browsing context flag, unless the sandbox attribute's value,
when split on spaces (page 52), is found to have the allow-forms keyword set
This flag blocks form submission (page 297).
The sandboxed scripts browsing context flag, unless the sandbox attribute's value,
when split on spaces (page 52), is found to have the allow-scripts keyword set
This flag blocks script execution (page 369).
These flags must not be set unless the conditions listed above define them as being set.
In this example, some completely-unknown, potentially hostile, user-provided HTML content

is embedded in a page. Because it is sandboxed, it is treated by the user agent as being
from a unique origin, despite the content being served from the same site. Thus it is
affected by all the normal cross-site restrictions. In addition, the embedded page has
scripting disabled, plugins disabled, forms disabled, and it cannot navigate any frames or
windows other than itself (or any frames or windows it itself embeds).
<p>We're not scared of you! Here is your content, unedited:</p>

<iframe sandbox src="getusercontent.cgi?id=12193"></iframe>
Note that cookies are still send to the server in the getusercontent.cgi request, though
they are not visible in the document.cookies DOM attribute.
199
In this example, a gadget from another site is embedded. The gadget has scripting and
forms enabled, and the origin sandbox restrictions are lifted, allowing the gadget to
communicate with its originating server. The sandbox is still useful, however, as it disables
plugins and popups, thus reducing the risk of the user being exposed to malware and other
annoyances.
<iframe sandbox="allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-scripts"

src="http://maps.example.com/embedded.html"></iframe>
The seamless attribute is a boolean attribute. When specified, it indicates that the iframe
element's browsing context (page 354) is to be rendered in a manner that makes it appear to be
part of the containing document (seamlessly included in the parent document). Specifically,
when the attribute is set on an element and while the browsing context (page 354)'s active
document (page 354) has the same origin (page 366) as the iframe element's document, or the
browsing context (page 354)'s active document (page 354)'s address has the same origin (page
366) as the iframe element's document, the following requirements apply:
• The user agent must set the seamless browsing context flag to true for that
browsing context (page 354). This will cause links to open in the parent browsing
context (page 411).
• In a CSS-supporting user agent: the user agent must add all the style sheets that apply
to the iframe element to the cascade of the active document (page 354) of the iframe
element's nested browsing context (page 355), at the appropriate cascade levels, before
any style sheets specified by the document itself.
• In a CSS-supporting user agent: the user agent must, for the purpose of CSS property
inheritance only, treat the root element of the active document (page 354) of the iframe
element's nested browsing context (page 355) as being a child of the iframe element.
(Thus inherited properties on the root element of the document in the iframe will inherit
the computed values of those properties on the iframe element instead of taking their
initial values.)
• In visual media, in a CSS-supporting user agent: the user agent should set the intrinsic
width of the iframe to the width that the element would have if it was a non-replaced
block-level element with 'width: auto'.
• In visual media, in a CSS-supporting user agent: the user agent should set the intrinsic
height of the iframe to the height of the bounding box around the content rendered in
the iframe at its current width.
• In visual media, in a CSS-supporting user agent: the user agent must force the height of
the initial containing block of the active document (page 354) of the nested browsing
context (page 355) of the iframe to zero.
Note: This is intended to get around the otherwise circular dependency

of percentage dimensions that depend on the height of the containing
block, thus affecting the height of the document's bounding box, thus
200
affecting the height of the viewport, thus affecting the size of the
initial containing block.
• In speech media, the user agent should render the nested browsing context (page 355)
without announcing that it is a separate document.
• User agents should, in general, act as if the active document (page 354) of the iframe's
nested browsing context (page 355) was part of the document that the iframe is in.
For example if the user agent supports listing all the links in a document, links in
"seamlessly" nested documents would be included in that list without being
significantly distinguished from links in the document itself.
Parts of the above might get moved into the rendering section at some point.
If the attribute is not specified, or if the origin (page 363) conditions listed above are not met,
then the user agent should render the nested browsing context (page 355) in a manner that is
clearly distinguishable as a separate browsing context (page 354), and the seamless browsing
context flag (page 200) must be set to false for that browsing context (page 354).
⚠Warning! It is important that user agents recheck the above conditions whenever
the active document (page 354) of the nested browsing context (page 355) of the
iframe changes, such that the seamless browsing context flag (page 200) gets unset
if the nested browsing context (page 355) is navigated (page 410) to another origin.
In this example, the site's navigation is embedded using a client-side include using an
iframe. Any links in the iframe will, in new user agents, be automatically opened in the
iframe's parent browsing context; for legacy user agents, the site could also include a base
element with a target attribute with the value _parent. Similarly, in new user agents the
styles of the parent page will be automatically applied to the contents of the frame, but to
support legacy user agents authors might wish to include the styles explicitly.
<nav><iframe seamless src="nav.include.html"></iframe></nav>
The iframe element supports dimension attributes (page 277) for cases where the embedded
content has specific dimensions (e.g. ad units have well-defined dimensions).
An iframe element never has fallback content (page 91), as it will always create a nested
browsing context (page 354), regardless of whether the specified initial contents are
successfully used.
Descendants of iframe elements represent nothing. (In legacy user agents that do not support
iframe elements, the contents would be parsed as markup that could act as fallback content.)
The content model of iframe elements is text, except that the text must be such that ...
anyone have any bright ideas?
201
Note: The HTML parser (page 518) treats markup inside iframe elements as
text.
The DOM attributes src, name, sandbox, and seamless must reflect (page 55) the content
4.7.4 The embed element
Categories

Content model:
Empty.
src
type
width
height
Any other attribute that has no namespace (see prose).
DOM interface:
interface HTMLEmbedElement : HTMLElement {

};
Depending on the type of content instantiated by the embed element, the node may also
support other interfaces.
The embed element represents an integration point for an external (typically non-HTML)
application or interactive content.
The src attribute gives the address of the resource being embedded. The attribute must be
present and contain a valid URL (page 29).
If the src attribute is missing, then the embed element must be ignored (it represents nothing).
If the sandboxed plugins browsing context flag (page 199) is set on the browsing context (page
354) for which the embed element's document is the active document (page 354), then the user
agent must render the embed element in a manner that conveys that the plugin (page 28) was
disabled. The user agent may offer the user the option to override the sandbox and instantiate
202
the plugin (page 28) anyway; if the user invokes such an option, the user agent must act as if
the sandboxed plugins browsing context flag (page 199) was not set for the purposes of this
element.
⚠Warning! Plugins are disabled in sandboxed browsing contexts because they might
not honor the restrictions imposed by the sandbox (e.g. they might allow scripting
even when scripting in the sandbox is disabled). User agents should convey the
danger of overriding the sandbox to the user if an option to do so is provided.
Otherwise, the src attribute is present, and the element is not in a sandboxed browsing context:
When the element is created with a src attribute, and whenever the src attribute is
subsequently set, user agents are expected to find an appropriate plugin (page 28) for the
specified resource, based on the content's type (page 203), and hand that plugin (page 28) the
content of the resource, fetching it if necessary. If the plugin (page 28) supports a scriptable
interface, the HTMLEmbedElement object representing the element should expose that interfaces.
Fetching the resource must delay the load event (page 593).
The user agent should pass the names and values of all the attributes of the embed element that
have no namespace to the plugin (page 28) used.
Any (namespace-less) attribute may be specified on the embed element, so long as its name is
XML-compatible (page 27).
The embed element has no fallback content (page 91). If the user agent can't display the
specified resource, e.g. because the given type is not supported, then the user agent must use a
default plugin for the content. (This default could be as simple as saying "Unsupported Format",
of course.)
The type attribute, if present, gives the MIME type of the linked resource. The value must be a
valid MIME type, optionally with parameters. [RFC2046]
The type of the content being embedded is defined as follows:
1. If the element has a type attribute, then the value of the type attribute is the content's
type.
2. Otherwise, if the specified resource has explicit Content-Type metadata (page 63), then
that is the content's type.
3. Otherwise, the content has no type and there can be no appropriate plugin (page 28) for
it.
Should we instead say that the content-sniffing used for top-level browsing contexts should
apply here?
Should we require the type attribute to match the server information?
203
We should say that 404s, etc, don't affect whether the resource is used or not. Not sure how
to say it here though.
The embed element supports dimension attributes (page 277).
The DOM attributes src and type each must reflect (page 55) the respective content attributes
of the same name.
4.7.5 The object element
Categories

Content model:
Zero or more param elements, then, transparent (page 91).
data
type
name
usemap
width
height
DOM interface:
interface HTMLObjectElement : HTMLElement {

attribute DOMString data;
attribute DOMString useMap;
};
Objects implementing the HTMLObjectElement interface must also implement the
EmbeddingElement interface defined in the Window Object specification. [WINDOW]
Depending on the type of content instantiated by the object element, the node may also
support other interfaces.
The object element can represent an external resource, which, depending on the type of the
resource, will either be treated as an image, as a nested browsing context (page 354), or as an
external resource to be processed by a plugin (page 28).
204
The data attribute, if present, specifies the address of the resource. If present, the attribute
must be a valid URL (page 29).
The type attribute, if present, specifies the type of the resource. If present, the attribute must
be a valid MIME type, optionally with parameters. [RFC2046]
One or both of the data and type attributes must be present.
The name attribute, if present, must be a valid browsing context name (page 357).
When the element is created, and subsequently whenever the classid attribute changes, or, if
the classid attribute is not present, whenever the data attribute changes, or, if neither
classid attribute nor the data attribute are present, whenever the type attribute changes, the
user agent must run the following steps to determine what the object element represents:
1. If the classid attribute is present, and has a value that isn't the empty string, then: if
the user agent can find a plugin (page 28) suitable according to the value of the classid
attribute, and plugins aren't being sandboxed (page 207), then that plugin (page 28)
should be used (page 207), and the value of the data attribute, if any, should be passed
to the plugin (page 28). If no suitable plugin (page 28) can be found, or if the plugin
(page 28) reports an error, jump to the last step in the overall set of steps (fallback).
2. If the data attribute is present, then:
1. If the type attribute is present and its value is not a type that the user agent
supports, and is not a type that the user agent can find a plugin (page 28) for,
then the user agent may jump to the last step in the overall set of steps
(fallback) without downloading the content to examine its real type.
2. Fetch the resource specified by the data attribute.
The download of the resource must delay the load event (page 593).
3. If the resource is not yet available (e.g. because the resource was not available
in the cache, so that loading the resource required making a request over the
network), then jump to the last step in the overall set of steps (fallback). When
the resource becomes available, or if the load fails, restart this algorithm from
this step. Resources can load incrementally; user agents may opt to consider a
resource "available" whenever enough data has been obtained to begin
processing the resource.
4. If the load failed (e.g. an HTTP 404 error, a DNS error), fire an error event (page
375) at the element, then jump to the last step in the overall set of steps
(fallback).
5. Determine the resource type, as follows:
1. Let the resource type be unknown.
205
2. If the resource has associated Content-Type metadata (page 63), then
let the resource type be the type specified in the resource's
Content-Type metadata (page 63).
3. If the resource type is unknown or "application/octet-stream" and

there is a type attribute present on the object element, then change
the resource type to instead be the type specified in that type attribute.
4. If the resource type is still unknown, then change the resource type to
instead be the sniffed type of the resource (page 64).
6. Handle the content as given by the first of the following cases that matches:
↪ If the resource type can be handled by a plugin (page 28) and

plugins aren't being sandboxed (page 207)
The user agent should use that plugin (page 207) and pass the content
of the resource to that plugin (page 28). If the plugin (page 28) reports
an error, then jump to the last step in the overall set of steps (fallback).
↪ If the resource type is an XML MIME type
↪ If the resource type is HTML
↪ If the resource type does not start with "image/"

The object element must be associated with a nested browsing context
(page 354), if it does not already have one. The element's nested
browsing context (page 354) must then be navigated (page 410) to the
given resource, with replacement enabled (page 414), and with the
object element's document's browsing context (page 354) as the
source browsing context (page 410). (The data attribute of the object
element doesn't get updated if the browsing context gets further
navigated to other locations.)
If the name attribute is present, the browsing context name (page 357)
must be set to the value of this attribute; otherwise, the browsing
context name (page 357) must be set to the empty string.
navigation might end up treating it as something else, because it can

do sniffing. how should we handle that?
↪ If the resource type starts with "image/", and support for images
has not been disabled
Apply the image sniffing (page 68) rules to determine the type of the
image.
The object element represents the specified image. The image is not a
nested browsing context (page 354).
206
If the image cannot be rendered, e.g. because it is malformed or in an
unsupported format, jump to the last step in the overall set of steps
(fallback).
↪ Otherwise
The given resource type is not supported. Jump to the last step in the
overall set of steps (fallback).
7. The element's contents are not part of what the object element represents.
8. Once the resource is completely loaded, fire a load event (page 375) at the
element.
3. If the data attribute is absent but the type attribute is present, plugins aren't being
sandboxed (page 207), and the user agent can find a plugin (page 28) suitable
according to the value of the type attribute, then that plugin (page 28) should be used
(page 207). If no suitable plugin (page 28) can be found, or if the plugin (page 28)
reports an error, jump to the next step (fallback).
4. (Fallback.) The object element represents what the element's contents represent,
ignoring any leading param element children. This is the element's fallback content
(page 91).
When the algorithm above instantiates a plugin (page 28), the user agent should pass the
names and values of all the parameters given by param elements that are children of the object
element to the plugin (page 28) used. If the plugin (page 28) supports a scriptable interface, the
HTMLObjectElement object representing the element should expose that interface. The plugin
(page 28) is not a nested browsing context (page 354).
354) for which the object element's document is the active document (page 354), then the
steps above must always act as if they had failed to find a plugin (page 28), even if one would
otherwise have been used.
Due to the algorithm above, the contents of object elements act as fallback content (page 91),
used only when referenced resources can't be shown (e.g. because it returned a 404 error). This
allows multiple object elements to be nested inside each other, targeting multiple user agents
with different capabilities, with the user agent picking the first one it supports.
Whenever the name attribute is set, if the object element has a nested browsing context (page
354), its name (page 357) must be changed to the new value. If the attribute is removed, if the
object element has a browsing context (page 354), the browsing context name (page 357)
must be set to the empty string.
The usemap attribute, if present while the object element represents an image, can indicate
that the object has an associated image map (page 273). The attribute must be ignored if the
object element doesn't represent an image.
The object element supports dimension attributes (page 277).
207
The DOM attributes data, type, name, and useMap each must reflect (page 55) the respective
content attributes of the same name.
In the following example, a Java applet is embedded in a page using the object element.
(Generally speaking, it is better to avoid using applets like these and instead use native
JavaScript and HTML to provide the functionality, since that way the application will work on
all Web browsers without requiring a third-party plugin. Many devices, especially embedded
devices, do not support third-party technologies like Java.)
<figure>
<object type="application/x-java-applet">
<param name="code" value="MyJavaClass">
<p>You do not have Java available, or it is disabled.</p>
</object>
<legend>My Java Clock</legend>
</figure>
In this example, an HTML page is embedded in another using the object element.
<figure>
<object data="clock.html"></object>
<legend>My HTML Clock</legend>
</figure>
4.7.6 The param element
Categories
None.

As a child of an object element, before any flow content (page 89).
Content model:
Empty.
name
value
DOM interface:
interface HTMLParamElement : HTMLElement {

attribute DOMString value;
};
The param element defines parameters for plugins invoked by object elements.
The name attribute gives the name of the parameter.
208
The value attribute gives the value of the parameter.
Both attributes must be present. They may have any value.
If both attributes are present, and if the parent element of the param is an object element, then
the element defines a parameter with the given name/value pair.
The DOM attributes name and value must both reflect (page 55) the respective content
4.7.7 The video element
Categories

Content model:
If the element has a src attribute: transparent (page 91).
If the element does not have a src attribute: one or more source elements, then,
transparent (page 91).
src
poster
autoplay
start
loopstart
loopend
end
playcount
controls
width
height
DOM interface:
interface HTMLVideoElement : HTMLMediaElement {

readonly attribute unsigned long videoWidth;
readonly attribute unsigned long videoHeight;
attribute DOMString poster;
};
A video element represents a video or movie.
209
Content may be provided inside the video element. User agents should not show this content to
the user; it is intended for older Web browsers which do not support video, so that legacy video
plugins can be tried, or to show text to the users of these older browser informing them of how
to access the video contents.
Note: In particular, this content is not fallback content (page 91) intended to
address accessibility concerns. To make video content accessible to the blind,
deaf, and those with other physical or cognitive disabilities, authors are
expected to provide alternative media streams and/or to embed accessibility
aids (such as caption or subtitle tracks) into their media streams.
The video element is a media element (page 217) whose media data (page 218) is ostensibly
video data, possibly with associated audio data.
The src, autoplay, start, loopstart, loopend, end, playcount, and controls attributes are
the attributes common to all media elements (page 218).
The video element supports dimension attributes (page 277).
The poster attribute gives the address of an image file that the user agent can show while no
video data is available. The attribute, if present, must contain a valid URL (page 29). If the
specified resource is to be used, it must be fetched when the element is created or when the
poster attribute is set.
Note: The image given by the poster attribute is intended to be a poster

frame, a representative frame of the video (typically one of the first non-blank
frames) that gives the user an idea of what the video is like.
The poster DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the poster content attribute.
The videoWidth DOM attribute must return the native width of the video in CSS pixels. The
videoHeight DOM attribute must return the native height of the video in CSS pixels. In the
absence of resolution information defining the mapping of pixels in the video to physical
dimensions, user agents may assume that one pixel in the video corresponds to one CSS pixel. If
no video data is available, then the attributes must return 0.
When no video data is available (the element's networkState attribute is either EMPTY, LOADING,
or LOADED_METADATA), video elements represent either the image given by the poster attribute,
or nothing.
When a video element is actively playing (page 229), it represents the frame of video at the
continuously increasing "current" position (page 226). When the current playback position (page
226) changes such that the last frame rendered is no longer the frame corresponding to the
current playback position (page 226) in the video, the new frame must be rendered. Similarly,
any audio associated with the video must, if played, be played synchronized with the current
playback position (page 226), at the specified volume (page 236) with the specified mute state
(page 236).
210
When a video element is paused (page 229) and the current playback position (page 226) is the
first frame of video, the element represents either the frame of video corresponding to the
current playback position (page 226) or the image given by the poster attribute, at the
discretion of the user agent.
When a video element is paused (page 229) at any other position, the element represents the
frame of video corresponding to the current playback position (page 226), or, if that is not yet
available (e.g. because the video is seeking or buffering), the last frame of the video to have
been rendered.
When a video element is neither actively playing (page 229) nor paused (page 229) (e.g. when
seeking or stalled), the element represents the last frame of the video to have been rendered.
Note: Which frame in a video stream corresponds to a particular playback

position is defined by the video stream's format.
In addition to the above, the user agent may provide messages to the user (such as "buffering",
"no video loaded", "error", or more detailed information) by overlaying text or icons on the video
or other areas of the element's playback area, or in another appropriate manner.
User agents that cannot render the video may instead make the element represent a link to an
external video playback utility or to the video data itself.
Video content should be rendered inside the element's playback area such that the video
content is shown centered in the playback area at the largest possible size that fits completely
within it, with the video content's adjusted aspect ratio (page 211) being preserved. Thus, if the
aspect ratio of the playback area does not match the adjusted aspect ratio (page 211) of the
video, the video will be shown letterboxed. Areas of the element's playback area that do not
contain the video represent nothing.
The adjusted aspect ratio of a video is the ratio of its intrinsic width to its intrinsic height.
If the video's pixel ratio override (page 220)'s is none, then the video's intrinsic width is the
width given by the resource itself. If the video has a pixel ratio override (page 220) other than
none, then the intrinsic width of the video is the width given by the resource itself, divided by
the pixel ratio given by the resource itself, multiplied by the video's pixel ratio override (page
220). If the resource doesn't give an explicit width, then user agents should assume that the
width of each pixel of the video data is exactly one CSS pixel multiplied by the resource's pixel
ratio. If the resource doesn't give an explicit pixel ratio, then user agents should assume that the
pixel ratio is 1.0.
The intrinsic height of a video is the height given by the resource itself. If the resource doesn't
give an explicit height, then user agents should assume that the height of each pixel of the
video data is exactly one CSS pixel.
User agents may adjust the intrinsic width and height of the video to ensure that each pixel of
video data corresponds to at least one device pixel, so long as this doesn't affect the adjusted
aspect ratio (page 211) (this is especially relevant for pixel ratios that are less than 1.0).
211
The intrinsic width of a video element's playback area is the intrinsic width of the video
resource, if that is available; otherwise it is the intrinsic width of the resource given by the
poster attribute, if that is available; otherwise it is 300 CSS pixels.
The intrinsic height of a video element's playback area is the intrinsic height of the video
resource, if that is available; otherwise it is the intrinsic height of the resource given by the
poster attribute, if that is available; otherwise it is 150 CSS pixels.
Note: The image given by the poster attribute is not affected by the pixel ratio
conversions.
User agents should provide controls to enable or disable the display of closed captions
associated with the video stream, though such features should, again, not interfere with the
page's normal rendering.
User agents may allow users to view the video content in manners more suitable to the user
(e.g. full-screen or in an independent resizable window). As for the other user interface features,
controls to enable this should not interfere with the page's normal rendering unless the user
agent is exposing a user interface (page 236). In such an independent context, however, user
agents may make full user interfaces visible, with, e.g., play, pause, seeking, and volume
controls, even if the controls attribute is absent.
User agents may allow video playback to affect system features that could interfere with the
user's experience; for example, user agents could disable screensavers while video playback is
in progress.
⚠Warning! User agents should not provide a public API to cause videos to be shown
full-screen. A script, combined with a carefully crafted video file, could trick the user
into thinking a system-modal dialog had been shown, and prompt the user for a
password. There is also the danger of "mere" annoyance, with pages launching
full-screen videos when links are clicked or pages navigated. Instead, user-agent
specific interface features may be provided to easily allow the user to obtain a
full-screen playback mode.
The spec does not currently define the interaction of the "controls" attribute with the "height"
and "width" attributes. This will likely be defined in the rendering section based on
implementation experience. So far, browsers seem to be making the controls overlay-only,
thus somewhat sidestepping the issue.
4.7.7.1. Video and audio codecs for video elements
User agents may support any video and audio codecs and container formats.
It would be helpful for interoperability if all browsers could support the same codecs.
However, there are no known codecs that satisfy all the current players: we need a codec that
is known to not require per-unit or per-distributor licensing, that is compatible with the open
212
source development model, that is of sufficient quality as to be usable, and that is not an
additional submarine patent risk for large companies. This is an ongoing issue and this section
will be updated once more information is available.
Note: Certain user agents might support no codecs at all, e.g. text browsers
running over SSH connections.
4.7.8 The audio element
Categories

Content model:
If the element has a src attribute: transparent (page 91).
If the element does not have a src attribute: one or more source elements, then,
transparent (page 91).
src
autoplay
start
loopstart
loopend
end
playcount
controls
DOM interface:
interface HTMLAudioElement : HTMLMediaElement {

// no members
};
An audio element represents a sound or audio stream.
Content may be provided inside the audio element. User agents should not show this content to
the user; it is intended for older Web browsers which do not support audio, so that legacy audio
plugins can be tried, or to show text to the users of these older browser informing them of how
to access the audio contents.
Note: In particular, this content is not fallback content (page 91) intended to
address accessibility concerns. To make audio content accessible to the deaf
or to those with other physical or cognitive disabilities, authors are expected
213
to provide alternative media streams and/or to embed accessibility aids (such
as transcriptions) into their media streams.
The audio element is a media element (page 217) whose media data (page 218) is ostensibly
audio data.
The src, autoplay, start, loopstart, loopend, end, playcount, and controls attributes are
the attributes common to all media elements (page 218).
When an audio element is actively playing (page 229), it must have its audio data played
synchronized with the current playback position (page 226), at the specified volume (page 236)
with the specified mute state (page 236).
When an audio element is not actively playing (page 229), audio must not play for the element.
4.7.8.1. Audio codecs for audio elements
User agents may support any audio codecs and container formats.
User agents must support the WAVE container format with audio encoded using the PCM format.
4.7.9 The source element
Categories
None.

As a child of a media element (page 217), before any flow content (page 89).
Content model:
Empty.
src
type
media
pixelratio
DOM interface:
interface HTMLSourceElement : HTMLElement {

attribute float pixelRatio;
};
214
The source element allows authors to specify multiple media resources (page 218) for media
elements (page 217).
The src attribute gives the address of the media resource (page 218). The value must be a valid
URL (page 29). This attribute must be present.
The type attribute gives the type of the media resource (page 218), to help the user agent
determine if it can play this media resource (page 218) before fetching it. Its value must be a
MIME type. The codecs parameter may be specified and might be necessary to specify exactly
how the resource is encoded. [RFC2046] [RFC4281]
The following list shows some examples of how to use the codecs= MIME parameter in the
type attribute.
H.264 Simple baseline profile video (main and extended video compatible) level 3
and Low-Complexity AAC audio in MP4 container
<source src="video.mp4" type="video/mp4; codecs="avc1.42E01E,
mp4a.40.2"">
H.264 Extended profile video (baseline-compatible) level 3 and Low-Complexity

AAC audio in MP4 container
<source src="video.mp4" type="video/mp4; codecs="avc1.58A01E,
mp4a.40.2"">
H.264 Main profile video level 3 and Low-Complexity AAC audio in MP4 container
<source src="video.mp4" type="video/mp4; codecs="avc1.4D401E,
mp4a.40.2"">
H.264 "High" profile video (incompatible with main, baseline, or extended

profiles) level 3 and Low-Complexity AAC audio in MP4 container
<source src="video.mp4" type="video/mp4; codecs="avc1.64001E,
mp4a.40.2"">
MPEG-4 Visual Simple Profile Level 0 video and Low-Complexity AAC audio in MP4
container
<source src="video.mp4" type="video/mp4; codecs="mp4v.20.8,
mp4a.40.2"">
MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile Level 0 video and Low-Complexity AAC audio in
MP4 container
<source src="video.mp4" type="video/mp4; codecs="mp4v.20.240,
mp4a.40.2"">
MPEG-4 Visual Simple Profile Level 0 video and AMR audio in 3GPP container
<source src="video.3gp" type="video/3gpp; codecs="mp4v.20.8,
samr"">
Theora video and Vorbis audio in Ogg container

<source src="video.ogv" type="video/ogg; codecs="theora,
vorbis"">
215
Theora video and Speex audio in Ogg container
<source src="video.ogv" type="video/ogg; codecs="theora,
speex"">
Vorbis audio alone in Ogg container

<source src="audio.ogg" type="audio/ogg; codecs=vorbis">
Speex audio alone in Ogg container

<source src="audio.spx" type="audio/ogg; codecs=speex">
FLAC audio alone in Ogg container

<source src="audio.oga" type="audio/ogg; codecs=flac">
Dirac video and Vorbis audio in Ogg container

<source src="video.ogv" type="video/ogg; codecs="dirac,
vorbis"">
Theora video and Vorbis audio in Matroska container

<source src="video.mkv" type="video/x-matroska; codecs="theora,
vorbis"">
The media attribute gives the intended media type of the media resource (page 218), to help the
user agent determine if this media resource (page 218) is useful to the user before downloading
it. Its value must be a valid media query (page 25). [MQ]
Either the type attribute, the media attribute or both, must be specified, unless this is the last
source element child of the parent element.
The pixelratio attribute allows the author to specify the pixel ratio of anamorphic media
resources (page 218) that do not self-describe their pixel ratio. The attribute value, if specified,
must be a valid floating point number (page 39) giving the ratio of the correct rendered width of
each pixel to the actual width of each pixel in the image (i.e., the multiple by which the video's
intrinsic width is to be multiplied to obtain the rendered width that gives the correct aspect
ratio). The default value, if the attribute is omitted or cannot be parsed, is 1.0.
Note: The only way this default is used is in deciding what number the
pixelRatio DOM attribute will return if the content attribute is omitted or
cannot be parsed. If the content attribute is omitted or cannot be parsed, then
the user agent doesn't adjust the intrinsic width of the video at all; the
intrinsic dimensions and the intrinsic pixel ratio of the video are honoured.
If a source element is inserted into a media element (page 217) that is already in a document
and whose networkState is in the EMPTY state, the user agent must implicitly invoke the load()
method on the media element (page 217) as soon as all other scripts have finished executing.
Any exceptions raised must be ignored.
The DOM attributes src, type, and media must reflect (page 55) the respective content
The DOM attribute pixelRatio must reflect (page 55) the pixelratio content attribute.
216
4.7.10 Media elements
Media elements implement the following interface:
interface HTMLMediaElement : HTMLElement {
// error state
readonly attribute MediaError error;
// network state
readonly attribute DOMString currentSrc;
const unsigned short EMPTY = 0;
const unsigned short LOADING = 1;
const unsigned short LOADED_METADATA = 2;
const unsigned short LOADED_FIRST_FRAME = 3;
const unsigned short LOADED = 4;
readonly attribute unsigned short networkState;
readonly attribute float bufferingRate;
readonly attribute boolean bufferingThrottled;
readonly attribute TimeRanges buffered;
readonly attribute ByteRanges bufferedBytes;
readonly attribute unsigned long totalBytes;
void load();
// ready state
const unsigned short DATA_UNAVAILABLE = 0;
const unsigned short CAN_SHOW_CURRENT_FRAME = 1;
const unsigned short CAN_PLAY = 2;
const unsigned short CAN_PLAY_THROUGH = 3;
readonly attribute unsigned short readyState;
readonly attribute boolean seeking;
// playback state
attribute float currentTime;
readonly attribute float duration;
readonly attribute boolean paused;
attribute float defaultPlaybackRate;
attribute float playbackRate;
readonly attribute TimeRanges played;
readonly attribute TimeRanges seekable;
readonly attribute boolean ended;
attribute boolean autoplay;
void play();
void pause();
// looping
attribute float start;
217
attribute float end;
attribute float loopStart;
attribute float loopEnd;
attribute unsigned long playCount;
attribute unsigned long currentLoop;
// cue ranges
void addCueRange(in DOMString className, in float start, in float end,
in boolean pauseOnExit, in VoidCallback enterCallback, in VoidCallback
exitCallback);
void removeCueRanges(in DOMString className);
// controls
attribute boolean controls;
attribute float volume;
attribute boolean muted;
};
The media element attributes, src, autoplay, start, loopstart, loopend, end, playcount,
and controls, apply to all media elements (page 217). They are defined in this section.
Media elements (page 217) are used to present audio data, or video and audio data, to the user.
This is referred to as media data in this section, since this section applies equally to media
elements (page 217) for audio or for video. The term media resource is used to refer to the
complete set of media data, e.g. the complete video file, or complete audio file.
4.7.10.1. Error codes
All media elements (page 217) have an associated error status, which records the last error the
element encountered since the load() method was last invoked. The error attribute, on
getting, must return the MediaError object created for this last error, or null if there has not
been an error.
interface MediaError {
const unsigned short MEDIA_ERR_ABORTED = 1;
const unsigned short MEDIA_ERR_NETWORK = 2;
const unsigned short MEDIA_ERR_DECODE = 3;
readonly attribute unsigned short code;
};
The code attribute of a MediaError object must return the code for the error, which must be one
of the following:
MEDIA_ERR_ABORTED (numeric value 1)

The download of the media resource (page 218) was aborted by the user agent at the user's
request.
218
MEDIA_ERR_NETWORK (numeric value 2)
A network error of some description caused the user agent to stop downloading the media
resource (page 218).
MEDIA_ERR_DECODE (numeric value 3)

An error of some description occurred while decoding the media resource (page 218).
4.7.10.2. Location of the media resource
The src content attribute on media elements (page 217) gives the address of the media
resource (video, audio) to show. The attribute, if present, must contain a valid URL (page 29).
If the src attribute of a media element (page 217) that is already in a document and whose
networkState is in the EMPTY state is added, changed, or removed, the user agent must
implicitly invoke the load() method on the media element (page 217) as soon as all other
scripts have finished executing. Any exceptions raised must be ignored.
Note: If a src attribute is specified, the resource it specifies is the media

resource (page 218) that will be used. Otherwise, the resource specified by
the first suitable source element child of the media element (page 217) is the
one used.
The src DOM attribute on media elements (page 217) must reflect (page 55) the content
attribute of the same name.
To pick a media resource for a media element (page 217), a user agent must use the
following steps:
1. Let the chosen resource's pixel ratio override be none.
2. If the media element (page 217) has a src attribute, then resolve (page 31) the URL
(page 29) given in that attribute. If that is successful, then the resulting absolute URL
(page 33) is the address of the media resource (page 218); jump to the last step.
3. Otherwise, let candidate be the first source element child in the media element (page
217), or null if there is no such child.
4. Loop: this is the start of the loop that looks at the source elements.
5. If candidate is not null and it has a pixelratio attribute, and the result of applying the
rules for parsing floating point number values (page 39) to the value of that attribute is
not an error, then let the chosen resource's pixel ratio override be that result.
6. If either:
• candidate is null, or
• the candidate element has no src attribute, or
219
• resolving (page 31) the URL (page 29) given by the candidate element's src
attribute fails, or
• the candidate element has a type attribute and that attribute's value, when
parsed as a MIME type, does not represent a type that the user agent can render
(including any codecs described by the codec parameter), or [RFC2046]
[RFC4281]
• the candidate element has a media attribute and that attribute's value, when
processed according to the rules for media queries (page 25), does not match
the current environment, [MQ]
...then the candidate is not suitable; go to the next step.
Otherwise, the result of resolving (page 31) the URL (page 29) given in that candidate
element's src attribute is the address of the media resource (page 218); jump to the last
step.
7. Let candidate be the next source element child in the media element (page 217), or null
if there are no more such children.
8. If candidate is not null, return to the step labeled loop.
9. There is no media resource (page 218). Abort these steps.
10. Let the address of the chosen media resource be the absolute URL (page 33) that was
found before jumping to this step, and let its pixel ratio override be the value of the
chosen resource's pixel ratio override.
The currentSrc DOM attribute must return the empty string if the media element (page 217)'s
networkState has the value EMPTY (page 220), and the absolute URL (page 33) that is the
address of the chosen media resource (page 220) otherwise.
4.7.10.3. Network states
As media elements (page 217) interact with the network, they go through several states. The
networkState attribute, on getting, must return the current network state of the element, which
must be one of the following values:
EMPTY (numeric value 0)

The element has not yet been initialized. All attributes are in their initial states.
LOADING (numeric value 1)

The element has picked a media resource (page 219) (the chosen media resource (page
220) is available from the currentSrc attribute), but none of the metadata has yet been
obtained and therefore all the other attributes are still in their initial states.
LOADED_METADATA (numeric value 2)

Enough of the resource has been obtained that the metadata attributes are initialized (e.g.
the length is known). The API will no longer raise exceptions when used.
220
LOADED_FIRST_FRAME (numeric value 3)
Actual media data (page 218) has been obtained. In the case of video, this specifically
means that a frame of video is available and can be shown.
LOADED (numeric value 4)

The entire media resource (page 218) has been obtained and is available to the user agent
locally. Network connectivity could be lost without affecting the media playback.
The algorithm for the load() method defined below describes exactly when the networkState
attribute changes value.
4.7.10.4. Loading the media resource
All media elements (page 217) have a begun flag, which must begin in the false state, a
loaded-first-frame flag, which must begin in the false state, and an autoplaying flag, which
must begin in the true state.
When the load() method on a media element (page 217) is invoked, the user agent must run
the following steps. Note that this algorithm might get aborted, e.g. if the load() method itself
is invoked again.
1. Any already-running instance of this algorithm for this element must be aborted. If those
method calls have not yet returned, they must finish the step they are on, and then
immediately return.
2. If the element's begun flag (page 221) is true, then the begun flag (page 221) must be
set to false, the error attribute must be set to a new MediaError object whose code
attribute is set to MEDIA_ERR_ABORTED, and the user agent must synchronously fire a
progress event (page 375) called abort at the media element (page 217).
3. The error attribute must be set to null, the loaded-first-frame flag (page 221) must be
set to false, and the autoplaying flag (page 221) must be set to true.
4. The playbackRate attribute must be set to the value of the defaultPlaybackRate

attribute.
5. If the media element (page 217)'s networkState is not set to EMPTY (page 220), then
the following substeps must be followed:
1. The networkState attribute must be set to EMPTY (page 220).
2. If readyState is not set to DATA_UNAVAILABLE, it must be set to that state.
3. If the paused attribute is false, it must be set to true.
4. If seeking is true, it must be set to false.
5. The current playback position (page 226) must be set to 0.
6. The currentLoop DOM attribute must be set to 0.
221
7. The user agent must synchronously fire a simple event (page 375) called
emptied at the media element (page 217).
6. The user agent must pick a media resource (page 219) for the media element (page
217). If that fails, the method must raise an INVALID_STATE_ERR exception, and abort
these steps.
7. The networkState attribute must be set to LOADING (page 220).
8. Note: The currentSrc attribute starts returning the new value.
9. The user agent must then set the begun flag (page 221) to true and fire a progress
event (page 375) called loadstart at the media element (page 217).
10. The method must return, but these steps must continue.
11. Note: Playback of any previously playing media resource (page 218) for
this element stops.
12. If a download is in progress for the media element (page 217), the user agent should
stop the download.
13. The user agent must then begin to download the chosen media resource (page 220). The
rate of the download may be throttled, however, in response to user preferences
(including throttling it to zero until the user indicates that the download can start), or to
balance the download with other connections sharing the same bandwidth.
14. While the download is progressing, the user agent must fire a progress event (page 375)
called progress at the element every 350ms (±200ms) or for every byte received,
whichever is least frequent.
If at any point the user agent has received no data for more than about three seconds,
the user agent must fire a progress event (page 375) called stalled at the element.
User agents may allow users to selectively block or slow media data (page 218)
downloads. When a media element (page 217)'s download has been blocked, the user
agent must act as if it was stalled (as opposed to acting as if the connection was closed).
The user agent may use whatever means necessary to download the resource (within
the constraints put forward by this and other specifications); for example, reconnecting
to the server in the face of network errors, using HTTP partial range requests, or
switching to a streaming protocol. The user agent must consider a resource erroneous
only if it has given up trying to download it.
↪ If the media data (page 218) cannot be downloaded at all, due to network
errors, causing the user agent to give up trying to download the resource
DNS errors and HTTP 4xx and 5xx errors (and equivalents in other protocols)
must cause the user agent to execute the following steps. User agents may also
follow these steps in response to other network errors of similar severity.
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1. The user agent should cancel the download.
2. The error attribute must be set to a new MediaError object whose

code attribute is set to MEDIA_ERR_NETWORK.
3. The begun flag (page 221) must be set to false and the user agent must
fire a progress event (page 375) called error at the media element
(page 217).
4. The element's networkState attribute must be switched to the EMPTY

(page 220) value and the user agent must fire a simple event (page
375) called emptied at the element.
5. These steps must be aborted.
↪ If the media data (page 218) can be downloaded but is in an unsupported

format, or can otherwise not be rendered at all
The server returning a file of the wrong kind (e.g. one that that turns out to not
be pure audio when the media element (page 217) is an audio element), or the
file using unsupported codecs for all the data, must cause the user agent to
execute the following steps. User agents may also execute these steps in
response to other codec-related fatal errors, such as the file requiring more
resources to process than the user agent can provide in real time.

code attribute is set to MEDIA_ERR_DECODE.
fire a progress event (page 375) called error at the media element
(page 217).
4. The element's networkState attribute must be switched to the EMPTY

(page 220) value and the user agent must fire a simple event (page
375) called emptied at the element.
↪ If the media data (page 218) download is aborted by the user

The download is aborted by the user, e.g. because the user navigated the
browsing context to another page, the user agent must execute the following
steps. These steps are not followed if the load() method itself is reinvoked, as
the steps above handle that particular kind of abort.

code attribute is set to MEDIA_ERR_ABORT.
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fire a progress event (page 375) called abort at the media element
(page 217).
4. If the media element (page 217)'s networkState attribute has the value
LOADING, the element's networkState attribute must be switched to the
EMPTY (page 220) value and the user agent must fire a simple event
(page 375) called emptied at the element. (If the networkState
attribute has a value greater than LOADING, then this doesn't happen;
the available data, if any, will be playable.)
↪ If the media data (page 218) can be downloaded but has non-fatal errors or
uses, in part, codecs that are unsupported, preventing the user agent from
rendering the content completely correctly but not preventing playback
altogether
The server returning data that is partially usable but cannot be optimally
rendered must cause the user agent to execute the following steps.
1. Should we fire a 'warning' event? Set the 'error' flag to

'MEDIA_ERR_SUBOPTIMAL' or something?
↪ Once enough of the media data (page 218) has been downloaded to
determine the duration of the media resource (page 218), its dimensions,
and other metadata
The user agent must follow these substeps:
1. The current playback position (page 226) must be set to the effective
start.
2. The networkState attribute must be set to LOADED_METADATA.
3. Note: A number of attributes, including duration,

buffered, and played, become available.
4. Note: The user agent will fire a simple event (page 375)
called durationchange at the element at this point.
5. The user agent must fire a simple event (page 375) called
loadedmetadata at the element.
↪ Once enough of the media data (page 218) has been downloaded to enable
the user agent to display the frame at the effective start (page 226) of the
media resource (page 218)
The user agent must follow these substeps:
1. The networkState attribute must be set to LOADED_FIRST_FRAME.
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2. The readyState attribute must change to CAN_SHOW_CURRENT_FRAME.
3. The loaded-first-frame flag (page 221) must be set to true.
loadedfirstframe at the element.
canshowcurrentframe at the element.
When the user agent has completed the download of the entire media resource (page
218), it must move on to the next step.
15. If the download completes without errors, the begun flag (page 221) must be set to
false, the networkState attribute must be set to LOADED, and the user agent must fire a
progress event (page 375) called load at the element.
If a media element (page 217) whose networkState has the value EMPTY is inserted into a
document, user agents must implicitly invoke the load() method on the media element (page
217) as soon as all other scripts have finished executing. Any exceptions raised must be ignored.
The bufferingRate attribute must return the average number of bits received per second for
the current download over the past few seconds. If there is no download in progress, the
attribute must return 0.
The bufferingThrottled attribute must return true if the user agent is intentionally throttling
the bandwidth used by the download (including when throttling to zero to pause the download
altogether), and false otherwise.
The buffered attribute must return a static normalized TimeRanges object (page 237) that
represents the ranges of the media resource (page 218), if any, that the user agent has
buffered, at the time the attribute is evaluated.
Note: Typically this will be a single range anchored at the zero point, but if,
e.g. the user agent uses HTTP range requests in response to seeking, then
there could be multiple ranges.
The bufferedBytes attribute must return a static normalized ByteRanges object (page 238) that
represents the ranges of the media resource (page 218), if any, that the user agent has
buffered, at the time the attribute is evaluated.
The totalBytes attribute must return the length of the media resource (page 218), in bytes, if it
is known and finite. If it is not known, is infinite (e.g. streaming radio), or if no media data (page
218) is available, the attribute must return 0.
User agents may discard previously buffered data.
Note: Thus, a time or byte position included within a range of the objects
return by the buffered or bufferedBytes attributes at one time can end up
225
being not included in the range(s) of objects returned by the same attributes
at a later time.
4.7.10.5. Offsets into the media resource
The duration attribute must return the length of the media resource (page 218), in seconds. If
no media data (page 218) is available, then the attributes must return 0. If media data (page
218) is available but the length is not known, the attribute must return the Not-a-Number (NaN)
value. If the media resource (page 218) is known to be unbounded (e.g. a streaming radio), then
the attribute must return the positive Infinity value.
When the length of the media resource (page 218) changes (e.g. from being unknown to known,
or from indeterminate to known, or from a previously established length to a new length) the
user agent must, once any running scripts have finished, fire a simple event (page 375) called
durationchange at the media element (page 217).
Media elements (page 217) have a current playback position, which must initially be zero.
The current position is a time.
The currentTime attribute must, on getting, return the current playback position (page 226),
expressed in seconds. On setting, the user agent must seek (page 233) to the new value (which
might raise an exception).
The start content attribute gives the offset into the media resource (page 218) at which
playback is to begin. The default value is the default start position of the media resource (page
218), or 0 if not enough media data (page 218) has been obtained yet to determine the default
start position or if the resource doesn't specify a default start position.
The effective start is the smaller of the start DOM attribute and the end of the media
The loopstart content attribute gives the offset into the media resource (page 218) at which
playback is to begin when looping a clip. The default value of the loopstart content attribute is
the value of the start DOM attribute.
The effective loop start is the smaller of the loopStart DOM attribute and the end of the
media resource (page 218).
The loopend content attribute gives an offset into the media resource (page 218) at which
playback is to jump back to the loopstart, when looping the clip. The default value of the
loopend content attribute is the value of the end DOM attribute.
The effective loop end is the greater of the start, loopStart, and loopEnd DOM attributes,
except if that is greater than the end of the media resource (page 218), in which case that's its
value.
The end content attribute gives an offset into the media resource (page 218) at which playback
is to end. The default value is infinity.
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The effective end is the greater of the start, loopStart, and end DOM attributes, except if
that is greater than the end of the media resource (page 218), in which case that's its value.
The start, loopstart, loopend, and end attributes must, if specified, contain value time offsets.
To get the time values they represent, user agents must use the rules for parsing time offsets
(page 52).
The start, loopStart, loopEnd, and end DOM attributes must reflect (page 55) the start,
loopstart, loopend, and end content attributes on the media element (page 217) respectively.
The playcount content attribute gives the number of times to play the clip. The default value is
1.
The playCount DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the playcount content attribute on the
media element (page 217). The value must be limited to only positive non-zero numbers (page
56).
The currentLoop attribute must initially have the value 0. It gives the index of the current loop.
It is changed during playback as described below.
When any of the start, loopStart, loopEnd, end, playCount, and currentLoop DOM attributes
change value (either through content attribute mutations reflecting into the DOM attribute, if
applicable, or through direct mutations of the DOM attribute), the user agent must apply the
following steps:
1. If the playCount DOM attribute's value is less than or equal to the currentLoop DOM
attribute's value, then the currentLoop DOM attribute's value must be set to
playCount-1 (which will make the current loop the last loop).
2. If the media element (page 217)'s networkState is in the EMPTY state or the LOADING
state, then the user agent must at this point abort these steps.
3. If the currentLoop is zero, and the current playback position (page 226) is before the
effective start, the user agent must seek (page 233) to the effective start.
4. If the currentLoop is greater than zero, and the current playback position (page 226) is
before the effective loop start, the user agent must seek (page 233) to the effective loop
start.
5. If the currentLoop is less than playCount-1, and the current playback position (page
226) is after the effective loop end, the user agent must seek (page 233) to the effective
loop start, and increase currentLoop by 1.
6. If the currentLoop is equal to playCount-1, and the current playback position (page
226) is after the effective end, the user agent must seek (page 233) to the effective end
and then the looping will end.
227
4.7.10.6. The ready states
Media elements (page 217) have a ready state, which describes to what degree they are ready
to be rendered at the current playback position (page 226). The possible values are as follows;
the ready state of a media element at any particular time is the greatest value describing the
state of the element:
DATA_UNAVAILABLE (numeric value 0)

No data for the current playback position (page 226) is available. Media elements (page
217) whose networkState attribute is less than LOADED_FIRST_FRAME are always in the
DATA_UNAVAILABLE state.
CAN_SHOW_CURRENT_FRAME (numeric value 1)

Data for the immediate current playback position (page 226) is available, but not enough
data is available that the user agent could successfully advance the current playback
position (page 226) at all without immediately reverting to the DATA_UNAVAILABLE state. In
video, this corresponds to the user agent having data from the current frame, but not the
next frame. In audio, this corresponds to the user agent only having audio up to the current
playback position (page 226), but no further.
CAN_PLAY (numeric value 2)

Data for the immediate current playback position (page 226) is available, as well as enough
data for the user agent to advance the current playback position (page 226) at least a little
without immediately reverting to the DATA_UNAVAILABLE state. In video, this corresponds to
the user agent having data for the current frame and the next frame. In audio, this
corresponds to the user agent having data beyond the current playback position (page 226).
CAN_PLAY_THROUGH (numeric value 3)

Data for the immediate current playback position (page 226) is available, as well as enough
data for the user agent to advance the current playback position (page 226) at least a little
without immediately reverting to the DATA_UNAVAILABLE state, and, in addition, the user
agent estimates that data is being downloaded at a rate where the current playback
position (page 226), if it were to advance at the rate given by the defaultPlaybackRate
attribute, would not overtake the available data before playback reaches the effective end
(page 227) of the media resource (page 218) on the last loop (page 227).
When the ready state of a media element (page 217) whose networkState is not EMPTY
changes, the user agent must follow the steps given below:
↪ If the new ready state is DATA_UNAVAILABLE

The user agent must fire a simple event (page 375) called dataunavailable at the
element.
↪ If the new ready state is CAN_SHOW_CURRENT_FRAME

If the element's loaded-first-frame flag (page 221) is true, the user agent must fire a
simple event (page 375) called canshowcurrentframe event.
Note: The first time the networkState attribute switches to this value,
the loaded-first-frame flag (page 221) is false, and the event is fired by
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the algorithm described above (page 224) for the load() method, in
conjunction with other steps.
↪ If the new ready state is CAN_PLAY

The user agent must fire a simple event (page 375) called canplay.
↪ If the new ready state is CAN_PLAY_THROUGH

The user agent must fire a simple event (page 375) called canplaythrough event. If the
autoplaying flag (page 221) is true, and the paused attribute is true, and the media
element (page 217) has an autoplay attribute specified, then the user agent must also
set the paused attribute to false and fire a simple event (page 375) called play.
Note: It is possible for the ready state of a media element to jump between
these states discontinuously. For example, the state of a media element
whose leaded-first-frame flag is false can jump straight from DATA_UNAVAILABLE
to CAN_PLAY_THROUGH without passing through the CAN_SHOW_CURRENT_FRAME and
CAN_PLAY states, and thus without firing the canshowcurrentframe and canplay
events. The only state that is guaranteed to be reached is the
CAN_SHOW_CURRENT_FRAME state, which is reached as part of the load() method's
processing.
The readyState DOM attribute must, on getting, return the value described above that
describes the current ready state of the media element (page 217).
The autoplay attribute is a boolean attribute (page 37). When present, the algorithm described
herein will cause the user agent to automatically begin playback of the media resource (page
218) as soon as it can do so without stopping.
The autoplay DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the content attribute of the same name.
4.7.10.7. Playing the media resource
The paused attribute represents whether the media element (page 217) is paused or not. The
attribute must initially be true.
A media element (page 217) is said to be actively playing when its paused attribute is false,
the readyState attribute is either CAN_PLAY or CAN_PLAY_THROUGH, the element has not ended
playback (page 229), playback has not stopped due to errors (page 229), and the element has
not paused for user interaction (page 230).
A media element (page 217) is said to have ended playback when the element's
networkState attribute is LOADED_METADATA or greater, the current playback position (page
226) is equal to the effective end of the media resource (page 218), and the currentLoop
attribute is equal to playCount-1.
A media element (page 217) is said to have stopped due to errors when the element's
networkState attribute is LOADED_METADATA or greater, and the user agent encounters a
229
non-fatal error (page 224) during the processing of the media data (page 218), and due to that
error, is not able to play the content at the current playback position (page 226).
A media element (page 217) is said to have paused for user interaction when its paused
attribute is false, the readyState attribute is either CAN_PLAY or CAN_PLAY_THROUGH and the
user agent has reached a point in the media resource (page 218) where the user has to make a
selection for the resource to continue.
It is possible for a media element (page 217) to have both ended playback (page 229) and
paused for user interaction (page 230) at the same time.
When a media element (page 217) is actively playing (page 229) and its owner Document is an
active document (page 354), its current playback position (page 226) must increase
monotonically at playbackRate units of media time per unit time of wall clock time. If this value
is not 1, the user agent may apply pitch adjustments to any audio component of the media
Note: This specification doesn't define how the user agent achieves the
appropriate playback rate — depending on the protocol and media available, it
is plausible that the user agent could negotiate with the server to have the
server provide the media data at the appropriate rate, so that (except for the
period between when the rate is changed and when the server updates the
stream's playback rate) the client doesn't actually have to drop or interpolate
any frames.
Media resources (page 218) might be internally scripted or interactive. Thus, a media element
(page 217) could play in a non-linear fashion. If this happens, the user agent must act as if the
algorithm for seeking (page 233) was used whenever the current playback position (page 226)
changes in a discontinuous fashion (so that the relevant events fire).
When a media element (page 217) that is actively playing (page 229) stops playing because its
readyState attribute changes to a value lower than CAN_PLAY, without the element having
ended playback (page 229), or playback having stopped due to errors (page 229), or playback
having paused for user interaction (page 230), or the seeking algorithm (page 233) being
invoked, the user agent must fire a simple event (page 375) called timeupdate at the element,
and then must fire a simple event (page 375) called waiting at the element.
When a media element (page 217) that is actively playing (page 229) stops playing because it
has paused for user interaction (page 230), the user agent must fire a simple event (page 375)
called timeupdate at the element.
When currentLoop is less than playCount-1 and the current playback position (page 226)
reaches the effective loop end, then the user agent must seek (page 233) to the effective loop
start, increase currentLoop by 1, and fire a simple event (page 375) called timeupdate.
When currentLoop is equal to the playCount-1 and the current playback position (page 226)
reaches the effective end, then the user agent must follow these steps:
1. The user agent must stop playback.
230
2. Note: The ended attribute becomes true.
3. The user agent must fire a simple event (page 375) called timeupdate at the element.
4. The user agent must fire a simple event (page 375) called ended at the element.
The defaultPlaybackRate attribute gives the desired speed at which the media resource (page
218) is to play, as a multiple of its intrinsic speed. The attribute is mutable, but on setting, if the
new value is 0.0, a NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR exception must be raised instead of the value being
changed. It must initially have the value 1.0.
The playbackRate attribute gives the speed at which the media resource (page 218) plays, as a
multiple of its intrinsic speed. If it is not equal to the defaultPlaybackRate, then the implication
is that the user is using a feature such as fast forward or slow motion playback. The attribute is
mutable, but on setting, if the new value is 0.0, a NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR exception must be raised
instead of the value being changed. Otherwise, the playback must change speed (if the element
is actively playing (page 229)). It must initially have the value 1.0.
When the defaultPlaybackRate or playbackRate attributes change value (either by being set
by script or by being changed directly by the user agent, e.g. in response to user control) the
user agent must, once any running scripts have finished, fire a simple event (page 375) called
ratechange at the media element (page 217).
When the play() method on a media element (page 217) is invoked, the user agent must run
the following steps.
1. If the media element (page 217)'s networkState attribute has the value EMPTY (page
220), then the user agent must invoke the load() method and wait for it to return. If
that raises an exception, that exception must be reraised by the play() method.
2. If the playback has ended (page 229), then the user agent must set currentLoop to zero
and seek (page 233) to the effective start.
Note: If this involved a seek, the user agent will fire a simple event
(page 375) called timeupdate at the media element (page 217).
3. The playbackRate attribute must be set to the value of the defaultPlaybackRate

attribute.
Note: If this caused the playbackRate attribute to change value, the

user agent will fire a simple event (page 375) called ratechange at the
media element (page 217).
4. If the media element (page 217)'s paused attribute is true, it must be set to false.
5. The media element (page 217)'s autoplaying flag (page 221) must be set to false.
6. The method must then return.
231
7. If the fourth step above changed the value of paused, the user agent must, after any
running scripts have finished executing, and after any other events triggered by this
algorithm (specifically timeupdate and ratechange) have fired, fire a simple event
(page 375) called play at the element.
When the pause() method is invoked, the user agent must run the following steps:
1. If the media element (page 217)'s networkState attribute has the value EMPTY (page
220), then the user agent must invoke the load() method and wait for it to return. If
that raises an exception, that exception must be reraised by the pause() method.
2. If the media element (page 217)'s paused attribute is false, it must be set to true.
3. The media element (page 217)'s autoplaying flag (page 221) must be set to false.
4. The method must then return.
5. If the second step above changed the value of paused, then, after any running scripts
have finished executing, the user agent must first fire a simple event (page 375) called
timeupdate at the element, and then fire a simple event (page 375) called pause at the
element.
When a media element (page 217) is removed from a Document, if the media element (page
217)'s networkState attribute has a value other than EMPTY (page 220) then the user agent
must act as if the pause() method had been invoked.
Media elements (page 217) that are actively playing (page 229) while not in a Document must
not play any video, but should play any audio component. Media elements must not stop playing
just because all references to them have been removed; only once a media element to which no
references exist has reached a point where no further audio remains to be played for that
element (e.g. because the element is paused or because the end of the clip has been reached)
may the element be garbage collected.
Note: If the media element (page 217)'s ownerDocument stops being an active
document, then the playback will stop (page 230) until the document is active
again.
The ended attribute must return true if the media element (page 217) has ended playback (page
229), and false otherwise.
The played attribute must return a static normalized TimeRanges object (page 237) that
represents the ranges of the media resource (page 218), if any, that the user agent has so far
rendered, at the time the attribute is evaluated.
4.7.10.8. Seeking
The seeking attribute must initially have the value false.
232
When the user agent is required to seek to a particular new playback position in the media
resource (page 218), it means that the user agent must run the following steps:
1. If the media element (page 217)'s networkState is less than LOADED_METADATA, then the
user agent must raise an INVALID_STATE_ERR exception (if the seek was in response to
a DOM method call or setting of a DOM attribute), and abort these steps.
2. If currentLoop is 0, let min be the effective start. Otherwise, let it be the effective loop
start.
3. If currentLoop is equal to playCount-1, let max be the effective end. Otherwise, let it be
the effective loop end.
4. If the new playback position is more than max, let it be max.
5. If the new playback position is less than min, let it be min.
6. If the (possibly now changed) new playback position is not in one of the ranges given in
the seekable attribute, then the user agent must raise an INDEX_SIZE_ERR exception (if
the seek was in response to a DOM method call or setting of a DOM attribute), and abort
these steps.
7. The current playback position (page 226) must be set to the given new playback
position.
8. The seeking DOM attribute must be set to true.
9. If the seek was in response to a DOM method call or setting of a DOM attribute, then
continue the script. The remainder of these steps must be run asynchronously.
10. Once any running scripts have finished executing, the user agent must fire a simple
event (page 375) called timeupdate at the element.
11. If the media element (page 217) was actively playing (page 229) immediately before it
started seeking, but seeking caused its readyState attribute to change to a value lower
than CAN_PLAY, the user agent must fire a simple event (page 375) called waiting at the
element.
12. If, when it reaches this step, the user agent has still not established whether or not the
media data (page 218) for the new playback position is available, and, if it is, decoded
enough data to play back that position, the user agent must fire a simple event (page
375) called seeking at the element.
13. The user agent must wait until it has established whether or not the media data (page
218) for the new playback position is available, and, if it is, until it has decoded enough
data to play back that position.
14. The seeking DOM attribute must be set to false.
15. Once any running scripts have finished executing, the user agent must fire a simple
event (page 375) called seeked at the element.
233
The seekable attribute must return a static normalized TimeRanges object (page 237) that
represents the ranges of the media resource (page 218), if any, that the user agent is able to
seek to, at the time the attribute is evaluated, notwithstanding the looping attributes (i.e. the
effective start and effective end, etc, don't affect the seekable attribute).
Note: If the user agent can seek to anywhere in the media resource (page
218), e.g. because it a simple movie file and the user agent and the server
support HTTP Range requests, then the attribute would return an object with
one range, whose start is the time of the first frame (typically zero), and
whose end is the same as the time of the first frame plus the duration
attribute's value (which would equal the time of the last frame).
4.7.10.9. Cue ranges
Media elements (page 217) have a set of cue ranges. Each cue range is made up of the
following information:
A class name
A group of related ranges can be given the same class name so that they can all be
removed at the same time.
A start time
An end time
The actual time range, using the same timeline as the media resource (page 218) itself.
A "pause" boolean
A flag indicating whether to pause playback on exit.
An "enter" callback
A callback that is called when the current playback position (page 226) enters the range.
An "exit" callback
A callback that is called when the current playback position (page 226) exits the range.
An "active" boolean
A flag indicating whether the range is active or not.
The addCueRange(className, start, end, pauseOnExit, enterCallback, exitCallback)

method must, when called, add a cue range (page 234) to the media element (page 217), that
cue range having the class name className, the start time start (in seconds), the end time end
(in seconds), the "pause" boolean with the same value as pauseOnExit, the "enter" callback
enterCallback, the "exit" callback exitCallback, and an "active" boolean that is true if the current
playback position (page 226) is equal to or greater than the start time and less than the end
time, and false otherwise.
The removeCueRanges(className) method must, when called, remove all the cue ranges (page
234) of the media element (page 217) which have the class name className.
234
When the current playback position (page 226) of a media element (page 217) changes (e.g.
due to playback or seeking), the user agent must run the following steps. If the current playback
position (page 226) changes while the steps are running, then the user agent must wait for the
steps to complete, and then must immediately rerun the steps. (These steps are thus run as
often as possible or needed — if one iteration takes a long time, this can cause certain ranges to
be skipped over as the user agent rushes ahead to "catch up".)
1. Let current ranges be an ordered list of cue ranges (page 234), initialized to contain all
the cue ranges (page 234) of the media element (page 217) whose start times are less
than or equal to the current playback position (page 226) and whose end times are
greater than the current playback position (page 226), in the order they were added to
the element.
2. Let other ranges be an ordered list of cue ranges (page 234), initialized to contain all the
cue ranges (page 234) of the media element (page 217) that are not present in current
ranges, in the order they were added to the element.
3. If none of the cue ranges (page 234) in current ranges have their "active" boolean set to
"false" (inactive) and none of the cue ranges (page 234) in other ranges have their
"active" boolean set to "true" (active), then abort these steps.
4. If the time was reached through the usual monotonic increase of the current playback
position during normal playback, the user agent must then fire a simple event (page
375) called timeupdate at the element. (In the other cases, such as explicit seeks,
relevant events get fired as part of the overall process of changing the current playback
position.)
5. If the time was reached through the usual monotonic increase of the current playback
position during normal playback, and there are cue ranges (page 234) in other ranges
that have both their "active" boolean and their "pause" boolean set to "true", then
immediately act as if the element's pause() method had been invoked. (In the other
cases, such as explicit seeks, playback is not paused by exiting a cue range, even if that
cue range has its "pause" boolean set to "true".)
6. Invoke all the non-null "exit" callbacks for all of the cue ranges (page 234) in other
ranges that have their "active" boolean set to "true" (active), in list order.
7. Invoke all the non-null "enter" callbacks for all of the cue ranges (page 234) in current
ranges that have their "active" boolean set to "false" (inactive), in list order.
8. Set the "active" boolean of all the cue ranges (page 234) in the current ranges list to
"true" (active), and the "active" boolean of all the cue ranges (page 234) in the other
ranges list to "false" (inactive).
Invoking a callback (an object implementing the VoidCallback interface) means calling its
handleEvent() method.
interface VoidCallback {
void handleEvent();
};
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The handleEvent method of objects implementing the VoidCallback interface is the entry point
for the callback represented by the object.
4.7.10.10. User interface
The controls attribute is a boolean attribute (page 37). If the attribute is present, or if the
media element (page 217) is without script (page 369), then the user agent should expose a
user interface to the user. This user interface should include features to begin playback,
pause playback, seek to an arbitrary position in the content (if the content supports arbitrary
seeking), change the volume, and show the media content in manners more suitable to the user
(e.g. full-screen video or in an independent resizable window). Other controls may also be made
available.
If the attribute is absent, then the user agent should avoid making a user interface available that
could conflict with an author-provided user interface. User agents may make the following
features available, however, even when the attribute is absent:
User agents may provide controls to affect playback of the media resource (e.g. play, pause,
seeking, and volume controls), but such features should not interfere with the page's normal
rendering. For example, such features could be exposed in the media element (page 217)'s
context menu.
Where possible (specifically, for starting, stopping, pausing, and unpausing playback, for muting
or changing the volume of the audio, and for seeking), user interface features exposed by the
user agent must be implemented in terms of the DOM API described above, so that, e.g., all the
same events fire.
The controls DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the content attribute of the same name.
The volume attribute must return the playback volume of any audio portions of the media
element (page 217), in the range 0.0 (silent) to 1.0 (loudest). Initially, the volume must be 0.5,
but user agents may remember the last set value across sessions, on a per-site basis or
otherwise, so the volume may start at other values. On setting, if the new value is in the range
0.0 to 1.0 inclusive, the attribute must be set to the new value and the playback volume must be
correspondingly adjusted as soon as possible after setting the attribute, with 0.0 being silent,
and 1.0 being the loudest setting, values in between increasing in loudness. The range need not
be linear. The loudest setting may be lower than the system's loudest possible setting; for
example the user could have set a maximum volume. If the new value is outside the range 0.0
to 1.0 inclusive, then, on setting, an INDEX_SIZE_ERR exception must be raised instead.
The muted attribute must return true if the audio channels are muted and false otherwise. On
setting, the attribute must be set to the new value; if the new value is true, audio playback for
this media resource (page 218) must then be muted, and if false, audio playback must then be
enabled.
Whenever either the muted or volume attributes are changed, after any running scripts have
finished executing, the user agent must fire a simple event (page 375) called volumechange at
the media element (page 217).
236
4.7.10.11. Time ranges
Objects implementing the TimeRanges interface represent a list of ranges (periods) of time.
interface TimeRanges {
float start(in unsigned long index);
float end(in unsigned long index);
};
The length DOM attribute must return the number of ranges represented by the object.
The start(index) method must return the position of the start of the indexth range
represented by the object, in seconds measured from the start of the timeline that the object
covers.
The end(index) method must return the position of the end of the indexth range represented by
the object, in seconds measured from the start of the timeline that the object covers.
These methods must raise INDEX_SIZE_ERR exceptions if called with an index argument greater
than or equal to the number of ranges represented by the object.
When a TimeRanges object is said to be a normalized TimeRanges object, the ranges it

represents must obey the following criteria:
• The start of a range must be greater than the end of all earlier ranges.
• The start of a range must be less than the end of that same range.
In other words, the ranges in such an object are ordered, don't overlap, aren't empty, and don't
touch (adjacent ranges are folded into one bigger range).
The timelines used by the objects returned by the buffered, seekable and played DOM
attributes of media elements (page 217) must be the same as that element's media resource
(page 218)'s timeline.
4.7.10.12. Byte ranges
Objects implementing the ByteRanges interface represent a list of ranges of bytes.
interface ByteRanges {
unsigned long start(in unsigned long index);
unsigned long end(in unsigned long index);
};
The length DOM attribute must return the number of ranges represented by the object.
237
The start(index) method must return the position of the first byte of the indexth range
represented by the object.
The end(index) method must return the position of the byte immediately after the last byte of
the indexth range represented by the object. (The byte position returned by this method is not in
the range itself. If the first byte of the range is the byte at position 0, and the entire stream of
bytes is in the range, then the value of the position of the byte returned by this method for that
range will be the same as the number of bytes in the stream.)
These methods must raise INDEX_SIZE_ERR exceptions if called with an index argument greater
than or equal to the number of ranges represented by the object.
When a ByteRanges object is said to be a normalized ByteRanges object, the ranges it

represents must obey the following criteria:
• The start of a range must be greater than the end of all earlier ranges.
• The start of a range must be less than the end of that same range.
In other words, the ranges in such an object are ordered, don't overlap, aren't empty, and don't
touch (adjacent ranges are folded into one bigger range).
4.7.10.13. Event summary
The following events fire on media elements (page 217) as part of the processing model
described above:
Event name Interface Dispatched when... Preconditions

loadstart ProgressEvent The user agent begins fetching networkState equals LOADING
[PROGRESS] the media data (page 218),
synchronously during the
load() method call.
progress ProgressEvent The user agent is fetching networkState is more than EMPTY and
[PROGRESS] media data (page 218). less than LOADED
loadedmetadata Event The user agent is fetching networkState equals LOADED_METADATA
media data (page 218), and
the media resource (page
218)'s metadata has just been
received.
loadedfirstframe Event The user agent is fetching networkState equals
media data (page 218), and LOADED_FIRST_FRAME
the media resource (page
218)'s first frame has just
been received.
load ProgressEvent The user agent finishes networkState equals LOADED
[PROGRESS] downloading the entire media
abort ProgressEvent The user agent stops fetching error is an object with the code
[PROGRESS] the media data (page 218) MEDIA_ERR_ABORTED. networkState
before it is completely equals either EMPTY or LOADED, depending
downloaded. This can be fired on when the download was aborted.
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synchronously during the
load() method call.
error ProgressEvent An error occurs while fetching error is an object with the code
[PROGRESS] the media data (page 218). MEDIA_ERR_NETWORK_ERROR or higher.
networkState equals either EMPTY or
LOADED, depending on when the download
was aborted.
emptied Event A media element (page 217) networkState is EMPTY; all the DOM
whose networkState was attributes are in their initial states.
previously not in the EMPTY
state has just switched to that
state (either because of a fatal
error during load that's about
to be reported, or because the
load() method was
reinvoked, in which case it is
fired synchronously during the
load() method call).
stalled ProgressEvent The user agent is trying to
fetch media data (page 218),
but data is unexpectedly not
forthcoming.
play Event Playback has begun. Fired paused is newly false.
after the play method has
returned.
pause Event Playback has been paused. paused is newly true.
Fired after the pause method
has returned.
waiting Event Playback has stopped because readyState is either DATA_UNAVAILABLE
the next frame is not or CAN_SHOW_CURRENT_FRAME, and paused
available, but the user agent is false. Either seeking is true, or the
expects that frame to become current playback position (page 226) is
available in due course. not contained in any of the ranges in
buffered. It is possible for playback to
stop for two other reasons without paused
being false, but those two reasons do not
fire this event: maybe playback ended
(page 229), or playback stopped due to
errors (page 229).
seeking Event The seeking DOM attribute
changed to true and the seek
operation is taking long
enough that the user agent
has time to fire the event.
seeked Event The seeking DOM attribute
changed to false.
timeupdate Event The current playback position
(page 226) changed in an
interesting way, for example
discontinuously.
ended Event Playback has stopped because currentTime equals the effective end;
the end of the media resource ended is true.
(page 218) was reached.
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dataunavailable Event The user agent cannot render The readyState attribute is newly equal
the data at the current to DATA_UNAVAILABLE.
playback position (page 226)
because data for the current
frame is not immediately
available.
canshowcurrentframe Event The user agent cannot render The readyState attribute is newly equal
the data after the current to CAN_SHOW_CURRENT_FRAME.
playback position (page 226)
because data for the next
frame is not immediately
available.
canplay Event The user agent can resume The readyState attribute is newly equal
playback of the media data to CAN_PLAY.
(page 218), but estimates that
if playback were to be started
now, the media resource
(page 218) could not be
rendered at the current
playback rate up to its end
without having to stop for
further buffering of content.
canplaythrough Event The user agent estimates that The readyState attribute is newly equal
if playback were to be started to CAN_PLAY_THROUGH.
now, the media resource
(page 218) could be rendered
at the current playback rate all
the way to its end without
having to stop for further
buffering.
ratechange Event Either the
defaultPlaybackRate or the
playbackRate attribute has
just been updated.
durationchange Event The duration attribute has
just been updated.
volumechange Event Either the volume attribute or
the muted attribute has
changed. Fired after the
relevant attribute's setter has
returned.
4.7.10.14. Security and privacy considerations
Talk about making sure interactive media files (e.g. SVG) don't have access to the container
DOM (XSS potential); talk about not exposing any sensitive data like metadata from tracks in
the media files (intranet snooping risk)
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4.7.11 The canvas element
Categories

Content model:
width
height
DOM interface:
interface HTMLCanvasElement : HTMLElement {

attribute unsigned long width;
attribute unsigned long height;
DOMString toDataURL();
DOMString toDataURL(in DOMString type);
DOMObject getContext(in DOMString contextId);

};
The canvas element represents a resolution-dependent bitmap canvas, which can be used for
rendering graphs, game graphics, or other visual images on the fly.
Authors should not use the canvas element in a document when a more suitable element is
available. For example, it is inappropriate to use a canvas element to render a page heading: if
the desired presentation of the heading is graphically intense, it should be marked up using
appropriate elements (typically h1) and then styled using CSS and supporting technologies such
as XBL.
When authors use the canvas element, they should also provide content that, when presented
to the user, conveys essentially the same function or purpose as the bitmap canvas. This
content may be placed as content of the canvas element. The contents of the canvas element, if
any, are the element's fallback content (page 91).
In interactive visual media, if the canvas element is with script (page 369), the canvas element
represents an embedded element with a dynamically created image.
In non-interactive, static, visual media, if the canvas element has been previously painted on
(e.g. if the page was viewed in an interactive visual medium and is now being printed, or if some
script that ran during the page layout process painted on the element), then the canvas element
represents embedded content (page 90) with the current image and size. Otherwise, the
element represents its fallback content (page 91) instead.
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In non-visual media, and in visual media if the canvas element is without script (page 369), the
canvas element represents its fallback content (page 91) instead.
The canvas element has two attributes to control the size of the coordinate space: width and
height. These attributes, when specified, must have values that are valid non-negative integers
(page 37). The rules for parsing non-negative integers (page 37) must be used to obtain their
numeric values. If an attribute is missing, or if parsing its value returns an error, then the default
value must be used instead. The width attribute defaults to 300, and the height attribute
defaults to 150.
The intrinsic dimensions of the canvas element equal the size of the coordinate space, with the
numbers interpreted in CSS pixels. However, the element can be sized arbitrarily by a style
sheet. During rendering, the image is scaled to fit this layout size.
The size of the coordinate space does not necessarily represent the size of the actual bitmap
that the user agent will use internally or during rendering. On high-definition displays, for
instance, the user agent may internally use a bitmap with two device pixels per unit in the
coordinate space, so that the rendering remains at high quality throughout.
Whenever the width and height attributes are set (whether to a new value or to the previous
value), the bitmap and any associated contexts must be cleared back to their initial state and
reinitialized with the newly specified coordinate space dimensions.
The width and height DOM attributes must reflect (page 55) the content attributes of the same
name.
Only one square appears to be drawn in the following example:
// canvas is a reference to a <canvas> element

var context = canvas.getContext('2d');
context.fillRect(0,0,50,50);
canvas.setAttribute('width', '300'); // clears the canvas
context.fillRect(0,100,50,50);
canvas.width = canvas.width; // clears the canvas
context.fillRect(100,0,50,50); // only this square remains
When the canvas is initialized it must be set to fully transparent black.
To draw on the canvas, authors must first obtain a reference to a context using the
getContext(contextId) method of the canvas element.
This specification only defines one context, with the name "2d". If getContext() is called with
that exact string for its contextId argument, then the UA must return a reference to an object
implementing CanvasRenderingContext2D. Other specifications may define their own contexts,
which would return different objects.
Vendors may also define experimental contexts using the syntax vendorname-context, for
example, moz-3d.
When the UA is passed an empty string or a string specifying a context that it does not support,
then it must return null. String comparisons must be literal and case-sensitive.
242
Arguments other than the contextId must be ignored, and must not cause the user agent to
raise an exception (as would normally occur if a method was called with the wrong number of
arguments).
Note: A future version of this specification will probably define a 3d context

(probably based on the OpenGL ES API).
The toDataURL() method must, when called with no arguments, return a data: URL containing
a representation of the image as a PNG file. [PNG].
If the canvas has no pixels (i.e. either its horizontal dimension or its vertical dimension is zero)
then the method must return the string "data:,". (This is the shortest data: URL; it represents
the empty string in a text/plain resource.)
The toDataURL(type) method (when called with one or more arguments) must return a data:
URL containing a representation of the image in the format given by type. The possible values
are MIME types with no parameters, for example image/png, image/jpeg, or even maybe
image/svg+xml if the implementation actually keeps enough information to reliably render an
SVG image from the canvas.
Only support for image/png is required. User agents may support other types. If the user agent
does not support the requested type, it must return the image using the PNG format.
User agents must convert the provided type to lower case before establishing if they support
that type and before creating the data: URL.
Note: When trying to use types other than image/png, authors can check if the
image was really returned in the requested format by checking to see if the
returned string starts with one the exact strings "data:image/png," or
"data:image/png;". If it does, the image is PNG, and thus the requested type
was not supported. (The one exception to this is if the canvas has either no
height or no width, in which case the result might simply be "data:,".)
If the method is invoked with the first argument giving a type corresponding to one of the types
given in the first column of the following table, and the user agent supports that type, then the
subsequent arguments, if any, must be treated as described in the second cell of that row.
Type Other arguments

image/ The second argument, if it is a number between 0.0 and 1.0, must be treated as the desired quality
jpeg level.
Other arguments must be ignored and must not cause the user agent to raise an exception (as
would normally occur if a method was called with the wrong number of arguments). A future
version of this specification will probably allow extra parameters to be passed to toDataURL() to
allow authors to more carefully control compression settings, image metadata, etc.
243
4.7.11.1. The 2D context
When the getContext() method of a canvas element is invoked with 2d as the argument, a
CanvasRenderingContext2D object is returned.
There is only one CanvasRenderingContext2D object per canvas, so calling the getContext()
method with the 2d argument a second time must return the same object.
The 2D context represents a flat Cartesian surface whose origin (0,0) is at the top left corner,
with the coordinate space having x values increasing when going right, and y values increasing
when going down.
interface CanvasRenderingContext2D {
// back-reference to the canvas

readonly attribute HTMLCanvasElement canvas;
// state
void save(); // push state on state stack
void restore(); // pop state stack and restore state
// transformations (default transform is the identity matrix)

void scale(in float x, in float y);
void rotate(in float angle);
void translate(in float x, in float y);
void transform(in float m11, in float m12, in float m21, in float m22,
in float dx, in float dy);
void setTransform(in float m11, in float m12, in float m21, in float
m22, in float dx, in float dy);
// compositing
attribute float globalAlpha; // (default 1.0)
attribute DOMString globalCompositeOperation; // (default
source-over)
// colors and styles

attribute DOMObject strokeStyle; // (default black)
attribute DOMObject fillStyle; // (default black)
CanvasGradient createLinearGradient(in float x0, in float y0, in float
x1, in float y1);
CanvasGradient createRadialGradient(in float x0, in float y0, in float
r0, in float x1, in float y1, in float r1);
CanvasPattern createPattern(in HTMLImageElement image, in DOMString
repetition);
CanvasPattern createPattern(in HTMLCanvasElement image, in DOMString
repetition);
// line caps/joins
attribute float lineWidth; // (default 1)
244
attribute DOMString lineCap; // "butt", "round", "square"
(default "butt")
attribute DOMString lineJoin; // "round", "bevel", "miter"
(default "miter")
attribute float miterLimit; // (default 10)
// shadows
attribute float shadowOffsetX; // (default 0)
attribute float shadowOffsetY; // (default 0)
attribute float shadowBlur; // (default 0)
attribute DOMString shadowColor; // (default transparent black)
// rects
void clearRect(in float x, in float y, in float w, in float h);
void fillRect(in float x, in float y, in float w, in float h);
void strokeRect(in float x, in float y, in float w, in float h);
// path API
void beginPath();
void closePath();
void moveTo(in float x, in float y);
void lineTo(in float x, in float y);
void quadraticCurveTo(in float cpx, in float cpy, in float x, in float
y);
void bezierCurveTo(in float cp1x, in float cp1y, in float cp2x, in float
cp2y, in float x, in float y);
void arcTo(in float x1, in float y1, in float x2, in float y2, in float
radius);
void rect(in float x, in float y, in float w, in float h);
void arc(in float x, in float y, in float radius, in float startAngle,
in float endAngle, in boolean anticlockwise);
void fill();
void stroke();
void clip();
boolean isPointInPath(in float x, in float y);
// text
attribute DOMString font; // (default 10px sans-serif)
attribute DOMString textAlign; // "start", "end", "left",
"right", "center" (default: "start")
attribute DOMString textBaseline; // "top", "hanging",
"middle", "alphabetic", "ideographic", "bottom" (default: "alphabetic")
void fillText(in DOMString text, in float x, in float y);
void fillText(in DOMString text, in float x, in float y, in float
maxWidth);
void strokeText(in DOMString text, in float x, in float y);
void strokeText(in DOMString text, in float x, in float y, in float
245
maxWidth);
TextMetrics measureText(in DOMString text);
// drawing images
void drawImage(in HTMLImageElement image, in float dx, in float dy);
void drawImage(in HTMLImageElement image, in float dx, in float dy, in
float dw, in float dh);
void drawImage(in HTMLImageElement image, in float sx, in float sy, in
float sw, in float sh, in float dx, in float dy, in float dw, in float dh);
void drawImage(in HTMLCanvasElement image, in float dx, in float dy);
void drawImage(in HTMLCanvasElement image, in float dx, in float dy, in
float dw, in float dh);
void drawImage(in HTMLCanvasElement image, in float sx, in float sy, in
float sw, in float sh, in float dx, in float dy, in float dw, in float dh);
// pixel manipulation
ImageData createImageData(in float sw, in float sh);
ImageData getImageData(in float sx, in float sy, in float sw, in float
sh);
void putImageData(in ImageData imagedata, in float dx, in float dy);
void putImageData(in ImageData imagedata, in float dx, in float dy, in
float dirtyX, in float dirtyY, in float dirtyWidth, in float dirtyHeight);
};
interface CanvasGradient {
// opaque object
void addColorStop(in float offset, in DOMString color);
};
interface CanvasPattern {
// opaque object
};
interface TextMetrics {
readonly attribute float width;
};
interface ImageData {
readonly attribute long int width;
readonly attribute long int height;
readonly attribute CanvasPixelArray data;
};
interface CanvasPixelArray {
[IndexGetter] float XXX5(in unsigned long index);
246
[IndexSetter] void XXX6(in unsigned long index, in float value);
};
The canvas attribute must return the canvas element that the context paints on.
Unless otherwise stated, for the 2D context interface, any method call with a numeric argument
whose value is infinite or a NaN value must be ignored.
Whenever the CSS value currentColor is used as a color in this API, the "computed value of the
'color' property" for the purposes of determining the computed value of the currentColor
keyword is the computed value of the 'color' property on the element in question at the time
that the color is specified (e.g. when the appropriate attribute is set, or when the method is
called; not when the color is rendered or otherwise used). If the computed value of the 'color'
property is undefined for a particular case (e.g. because the element is not in a document), then
the "computed value of the 'color' property" for the purposes of determining the computed value
of the currentColor keyword is fully opaque black. [CSS3COLOR]
4.7.11.1.1. The canvas state
Each context maintains a stack of drawing states. Drawing states consist of:
• The current transformation matrix (page 247).

• The current clipping region (page 258).
• The current values of the following attributes: strokeStyle, fillStyle, globalAlpha,
lineWidth, lineCap, lineJoin, miterLimit, shadowOffsetX, shadowOffsetY,
shadowBlur, shadowColor, globalCompositeOperation, font, textAlign,
textBaseline.
Note: The current path and the current bitmap are not part of the drawing
state. The current path is persistent, and can only be reset using the
beginPath() method. The current bitmap is a property of the canvas, not the
context.
The save() method must push a copy of the current drawing state onto the drawing state stack.
The restore() method must pop the top entry in the drawing state stack, and reset the drawing
state it describes. If there is no saved state, the method must do nothing.
4.7.11.1.2. Transformations
The transformation matrix is applied to coordinates when creating shapes and paths.
When the context is created, the transformation matrix must initially be the identity transform. It
may then be adjusted using the transformation methods.
The transformations must be performed in reverse order. For instance, if a scale transformation
that doubles the width is applied, followed by a rotation transformation that rotates drawing
247
operations by a quarter turn, and a rectangle twice as wide as it is tall is then drawn on the
canvas, the actual result will be a square.
The scale(x, y) method must add the scaling transformation described by the arguments to
the transformation matrix. The x argument represents the scale factor in the horizontal direction
and the y argument represents the scale factor in the vertical direction. The factors are
multiples.
The rotate(angle) method must add the rotation transformation described by the argument to
the transformation matrix. The angle argument represents a clockwise rotation angle expressed
in radians. If the angle argument is infinite, the method call must be ignored.
The translate(x, y) method must add the translation transformation described by the
arguments to the transformation matrix. The x argument represents the translation distance in
the horizontal direction and the y argument represents the translation distance in the vertical
direction. The arguments are in coordinate space units.
The transform(m11, m12, m21, m22, dx, dy) method must multiply the current
transformation matrix with the matrix described by:
m11 m21 dx
m12 m22 dy
0 0 1
The setTransform(m11, m12, m21, m22, dx, dy) method must reset the current transform to
the identity matrix, and then invoke the transform(m11, m12, m21, m22, dx, dy) method
with the same arguments.
4.7.11.1.3. Compositing
All drawing operations are affected by the global compositing attributes, globalAlpha and
globalCompositeOperation.
The globalAlpha attribute gives an alpha value that is applied to shapes and images before
they are composited onto the canvas. The value must be in the range from 0.0 (fully
transparent) to 1.0 (no additional transparency). If an attempt is made to set the attribute to a
value outside this range, the attribute must retain its previous value. When the context is
created, the globalAlpha attribute must initially have the value 1.0.
The globalCompositeOperation attribute sets how shapes and images are drawn onto the
existing bitmap, once they have had globalAlpha and the current transformation matrix
applied. It must be set to a value from the following list. In the descriptions below, the source
image, A, is the shape or image being rendered, and the destination image, B, is the current
state of the bitmap.
source-atop
A atop B. Display the source image wherever both images are opaque. Display the
destination image wherever the destination image is opaque but the source image is
transparent. Display transparency elsewhere.
248
source-in
A in B. Display the source image wherever both the source image and destination image are
opaque. Display transparency elsewhere.
source-out
A out B. Display the source image wherever the source image is opaque and the destination
image is transparent. Display transparency elsewhere.
source-over (default)
A over B. Display the source image wherever the source image is opaque. Display the
destination image elsewhere.
destination-atop
B atop A. Same as source-atop but using the destination image instead of the source
image and vice versa.
destination-in
B in A. Same as source-in but using the destination image instead of the source image and
vice versa.
destination-out
B out A. Same as source-out but using the destination image instead of the source image
and vice versa.
destination-over
B over A. Same as source-over but using the destination image instead of the source
image and vice versa.
lighter
A plus B. Display the sum of the source image and destination image, with color values
approaching 1 as a limit.
copy
A (B is ignored). Display the source image instead of the destination image.
xor
A xor B. Exclusive OR of the source image and destination image.
vendorName-operationName
Vendor-specific extensions to the list of composition operators should use this syntax.
These values are all case-sensitive — they must be used exactly as shown. User agents must not
recognize values that do not exactly match the values given above.
The operators in the above list must be treated as described by the Porter-Duff operator given at
the start of their description (e.g. A over B). [PORTERDUFF]
On setting, if the user agent does not recognize the specified value, it must be ignored, leaving
the value of globalCompositeOperation unaffected.
249
When the context is created, the globalCompositeOperation attribute must initially have the
value source-over.
4.7.11.1.4. Colors and styles
The strokeStyle attribute represents the color or style to use for the lines around shapes, and
the fillStyle attribute represents the color or style to use inside the shapes.
Both attributes can be either strings, CanvasGradients, or CanvasPatterns. On setting, strings

must be parsed as CSS <color> values and the color assigned, and CanvasGradient and
CanvasPattern objects must be assigned themselves. [CSS3COLOR] If the value is a string but is
not a valid color, or is neither a string, a CanvasGradient, nor a CanvasPattern, then it must be
ignored, and the attribute must retain its previous value.
On getting, if the value is a color, then the serialization of the color (page 250) must be
returned. Otherwise, if it is not a color but a CanvasGradient or CanvasPattern, then the
respective object must be returned. (Such objects are opaque and therefore only useful for
assigning to other attributes or for comparison to other gradients or patterns.)
The serialization of a color for a color value is a string, computed as follows: if it has alpha
equal to 1.0, then the string is a lowercase six-digit hex value, prefixed with a "#" character
(U+0023 NUMBER SIGN), with the first two digits representing the red component, the next two
digits representing the green component, and the last two digits representing the blue
component, the digits being in the range 0-9 a-f (U+0030 to U+0039 and U+0061 to U+0066).
Otherwise, the color value has alpha less than 1.0, and the string is the color value in the CSS
rgba() functional-notation format: the literal string rgba (U+0072 U+0067 U+0062 U+0061)
followed by a U+0028 LEFT PARENTHESIS, a base-ten integer in the range 0-255 representing
the red component (using digits 0-9, U+0030 to U+0039, in the shortest form possible), a literal
U+002C COMMA and U+0020 SPACE, an integer for the green component, a comma and a
space, an integer for the blue component, another comma and space, a U+0030 DIGIT ZERO, a
U+002E FULL STOP (representing the decimal point), one or more digits in the range 0-9
(U+0030 to U+0039) representing the fractional part of the alpha value, and finally a U+0029
RIGHT PARENTHESIS.
When the context is created, the strokeStyle and fillStyle attributes must initially have the
string value #000000.
There are two types of gradients, linear gradients and radial gradients, both represented by
objects implementing the opaque CanvasGradient interface.
Once a gradient has been created (see below), stops are placed along it to define how the colors
are distributed along the gradient. The color of the gradient at each stop is the color specified
for that stop. Between each such stop, the colors and the alpha component must be linearly
interpolated over the RGBA space without premultiplying the alpha value to find the color to use
at that offset. Before the first stop, the color must be the color of the first stop. After the last
stop, the color must be the color of the last stop. When there are no stops, the gradient is
transparent black.
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The addColorStop(offset, color) method on the CanvasGradient interface adds a new stop
to a gradient. If the offset is less than 0, greater than 1, infinite, or NaN, then an
INDEX_SIZE_ERR exception must be raised. If the color cannot be parsed as a CSS color, then a
SYNTAX_ERR exception must be raised. Otherwise, the gradient must have a new stop placed, at
offset offset relative to the whole gradient, and with the color obtained by parsing color as a CSS
<color> value. If multiple stops are added at the same offset on a gradient, they must be placed
in the order added, with the first one closest to the start of the gradient, and each subsequent
one infinitesimally further along towards the end point (in effect causing all but the first and last
stop added at each point to be ignored).
The createLinearGradient(x0, y0, x1, y1) method takes four arguments that represent the
start point (x0, y0) and end point (x1, y1) of the gradient. If any of the arguments to
createLinearGradient() are infinite or NaN, the method must raise a NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR
exception. Otherwise, the method must return a linear CanvasGradient initialized with the
specified line.
Linear gradients must be rendered such that all points on a line perpendicular to the line that
crosses the start and end points have the color at the point where those two lines cross (with the
colors coming from the interpolation and extrapolation (page 250) described above). The points
in the linear gradient must be transformed as described by the current transformation matrix
(page 247) when rendering.
If x0 = x1 and y0 = y1, then the linear gradient must paint nothing.
The createRadialGradient(x0, y0, r0, x1, y1, r1) method takes six arguments, the first
three representing the start circle with origin (x0, y0) and radius r0, and the last three
representing the end circle with origin (x1, y1) and radius r1. The values are in coordinate space
units. If any of the arguments are infinite or NaN, a NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR exception must be
raised. If either of r0 or r1 are negative, an INDEX_SIZE_ERR exception must be raised.
Otherwise, the method must return a radial CanvasGradient initialized with the two specified
circles.
Radial gradients must be rendered by following these steps:
1. If x0 = x1 and y0 = y1 and r0 = r1, then the radial gradient must paint nothing. Abort
these steps.
2. Let x(ω) = (x1-x0)ω + x0
Let y(ω) = (y1-y0)ω + y0
Let r(ω) = (r1-r0)ω + r0
Let the color at ω be the color at that position on the gradient (with the colors coming
from the interpolation and extrapolation (page 250) described above).
3. For all values of ω where r(ω) > 0, starting with the value of ω nearest to positive infinity
and ending with the value of ω nearest to negative infinity, draw the circumference of
the circle with radius r(ω) at position (x(ω), y(ω)), with the color at ω, but only painting
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on the parts of the canvas that have not yet been painted on by earlier circles in this
step for this rendering of the gradient.
Note: This effectively creates a cone, touched by the two circles defined in the
creation of the gradient, with the part of the cone before the start circle (0.0)
using the color of the first offset, the part of the cone after the end circle (1.0)
using the color of the last offset, and areas outside the cone untouched by the
gradient (transparent black).
Gradients must be painted only where the relevant stroking or filling effects requires that they
be drawn.
The points in the radial gradient must be transformed as described by the current
transformation matrix (page 247) when rendering.
Patterns are represented by objects implementing the opaque CanvasPattern interface.
To create objects of this type, the createPattern(image, repetition) method is used. The
first argument gives the image to use as the pattern (either an HTMLImageElement or an
HTMLCanvasElement). Modifying this image after calling the createPattern() method must not
affect the pattern. The second argument must be a string with one of the following values:
repeat, repeat-x, repeat-y, no-repeat. If the empty string or null is specified, repeat must be
assumed. If an unrecognized value is given, then the user agent must raise a SYNTAX_ERR
exception. User agents must recognize the four values described above exactly (e.g. they must
not do case folding). The method must return a CanvasPattern object suitably initialized.
The image argument must be an instance of an HTMLImageElement or HTMLCanvasElement. If

the image is of the wrong type or null, the implementation must raise a TYPE_MISMATCH_ERR
exception.
If the image argument is an HTMLImageElement object whose complete attribute is false, then
the implementation must raise an INVALID_STATE_ERR exception.
If the image argument is an HTMLCanvasElement object with either a horizontal dimension or a

vertical dimension equal to zero, then the implementation must raise an INVALID_STATE_ERR
exception.
Patterns must be painted so that the top left of the first image is anchored at the origin of the
coordinate space, and images are then repeated horizontally to the left and right (if the
repeat-x string was specified) or vertically up and down (if the repeat-y string was specified)
or in all four directions all over the canvas (if the repeat string was specified). The images are
not scaled by this process; one CSS pixel of the image must be painted on one coordinate space
unit. Of course, patterns must actually be painted only where the stroking or filling effect
requires that they be drawn, and are affected by the current transformation matrix.
When the createPattern() method is passed, as its image argument, an animated image, the
poster frame of the animation, or the first frame of the animation if there is no poster frame,
must be used.
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Support for patterns is optional. If the user agent doesn't support patterns, then
createPattern() must return null.
4.7.11.1.5. Line styles
The lineWidth attribute gives the width of lines, in coordinate space units. On setting, zero,
negative, infinite, and NaN values must be ignored, leaving the value unchanged.
When the context is created, the lineWidth attribute must initially have the value 1.0.
The lineCap attribute defines the type of endings that UAs will place on the end of lines. The
three valid values are butt, round, and square. The butt value means that the end of each line
has a flat edge perpendicular to the direction of the line (and that no additional line cap is
added). The round value means that a semi-circle with the diameter equal to the width of the
line must then be added on to the end of the line. The square value means that a rectangle with
the length of the line width and the width of half the line width, placed flat against the edge
perpendicular to the direction of the line, must be added at the end of each line. On setting, any
other value than the literal strings butt, round, and square must be ignored, leaving the value
unchanged.
When the context is created, the lineCap attribute must initially have the value butt.
The lineJoin attribute defines the type of corners that UAs will place where two lines meet. The
three valid values are bevel, round, and miter.
On setting, any other value than the literal strings bevel, round, and miter must be ignored,
leaving the value unchanged.
When the context is created, the lineJoin attribute must initially have the value miter.
A join exists at any point in a subpath shared by two consecutive lines. When a subpath is
closed, then a join also exists at its first point (equivalent to its last point) connecting the first
and last lines in the subpath.
In addition to the point where the join occurs, two additional points are relevant to each join, one
for each line: the two corners found half the line width away from the join point, one
perpendicular to each line, each on the side furthest from the other line.
A filled triangle connecting these two opposite corners with a straight line, with the third point of
the triangle being the join point, must be rendered at all joins. The lineJoin attribute controls
whether anything else is rendered. The three aforementioned values have the following
meanings:
The bevel value means that this is all that is rendered at joins.
The round value means that a filled arc connecting the two aforementioned corners of the join,
abutting (and not overlapping) the aforementioned triangle, with the diameter equal to the line
width and the origin at the point of the join, must be rendered at joins.
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The miter value means that a second filled triangle must (if it can given the miter length) be
rendered at the join, with one line being the line between the two aforementioned corners,
abutting the first triangle, and the other two being continuations of the outside edges of the two
joining lines, as long as required to intersect without going over the miter length.
The miter length is the distance from the point where the lines touch on the inside of the join to
the intersection of the line edges on the outside of the join. The miter limit ratio is the maximum
allowed ratio of the miter length to half the line width. If the miter length would cause the miter
limit ratio to be exceeded, this second triangle must not be rendered.
The miter limit ratio can be explicitly set using the miterLimit attribute. On setting, zero,
negative, infinite, and NaN values must be ignored, leaving the value unchanged.
When the context is created, the miterLimit attribute must initially have the value 10.0.
4.7.11.1.6. Shadows
All drawing operations are affected by the four global shadow attributes.
The shadowColor attribute sets the color of the shadow.
When the context is created, the shadowColor attribute initially must be fully-transparent black.
On getting, the serialization of the color (page 250) must be returned.
On setting, the new value must be parsed as a CSS <color> value and the color assigned. If the
value is not a valid color, then it must be ignored, and the attribute must retain its previous
value. [CSS3COLOR]
The shadowOffsetX and shadowOffsetY attributes specify the distance that the shadow will be
offset in the positive horizontal and positive vertical distance respectively. Their values are in
coordinate space units. They are not affected by the current transformation matrix.
When the context is created, the shadow offset attributes must initially have the value 0.
On getting, they must return their current value. On setting, the attribute being set must be set
to the new value, except if the value is infinite or NaN, in which case the new value must be
ignored.
The shadowBlur attribute specifies the size of the blurring effect. (The units do not map to
coordinate space units, and are not affected by the current transformation matrix.)
When the context is created, the shadowBlur attribute must initially have the value 0.
On getting, the attribute must return its current value. On setting the attribute must be set to
the new value, except if the value is negative, infinite or NaN, in which case the new value must
be ignored.
When shadows are drawn, they must be rendered as follows:
1. Let A be the source image for which a shadow is being created.
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2. Let B be an infinite transparent black bitmap, with a coordinate space and an origin
identical to A.
3. Copy the alpha channel of A to B, offset by shadowOffsetX in the positive x direction,

and shadowOffsetY in the positive y direction.
4. If shadowBlur is greater than 0:
1. If shadowBlur is less than 8, let σ be half the value of shadowBlur; otherwise, let
σ be the square root of multiplying the value of shadowBlur by 2.
2. Perform a 2D Gaussian Blur on B, using σ as the standard deviation.
User agents may limit values of σ to an implementation-specific maximum value to avoid

exceeding hardware limitations during the Gaussian blur operation.
5. Set the red, green, and blue components of every pixel in B to the red, green, and blue
components (respectively) of the color of shadowColor.
6. Multiply the alpha component of every pixel in B by the alpha component of the color of
shadowColor.
7. The shadow is in the bitmap B, and is rendered as part of the drawing model described
below.
4.7.11.1.7. Simple shapes (rectangles)
There are three methods that immediately draw rectangles to the bitmap. They each take four
arguments; the first two give the x and y coordinates of the top left of the rectangle, and the
second two give the width w and height h of the rectangle, respectively.
The current transformation matrix (page 247) must be applied to the following four coordinates,
which form the path that must then be closed to get the specified rectangle: (x, y), (x+w, y),
(x+w, y+h), (x, y+h).
Shapes are painted without affecting the current path, and are subject to the clipping region
(page 258), and, with the exception of clearRect(), also shadow effects (page 254), global
alpha (page 248), and global composition operators (page 248).
The clearRect(x, y, w, h) method must clear the pixels in the specified rectangle that also
intersect the current clipping region to a fully transparent black, erasing any previous image. If
either height or width are zero, this method has no effect.
The fillRect(x, y, w, h) method must paint the specified rectangular area using the
fillStyle. If either height or width are zero, this method has no effect.
The strokeRect(x, y, w, h) method must stroke the specified rectangle's path using the
strokeStyle, lineWidth, lineJoin, and (if appropriate) miterLimit attributes. If both height
and width are zero, this method has no effect, since there is no path to stroke (it's a point). If
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only one of the two is zero, then the method will draw a line instead (the path for the outline is
just a straight line along the non-zero dimension).
4.7.11.1.8. Complex shapes (paths)
The context always has a current path. There is only one current path, it is not part of the
drawing state.
A path has a list of zero or more subpaths. Each subpath consists of a list of one or more points,
connected by straight or curved lines, and a flag indicating whether the subpath is closed or not.
A closed subpath is one where the last point of the subpath is connected to the first point of the
subpath by a straight line. Subpaths with fewer than two points are ignored when painting the
path.
Initially, the context's path must have zero subpaths.
The points and lines added to the path by these methods must be transformed according to the
current transformation matrix (page 247) as they are added.
The beginPath() method must empty the list of subpaths so that the context once again has
zero subpaths.
The moveTo(x, y) method must create a new subpath with the specified point as its first (and
only) point.
The closePath() method must do nothing if the context has no subpaths. Otherwise, it must
mark the last subpath as closed, create a new subpath whose first point is the same as the
previous subpath's first point, and finally add this new subpath to the path. (If the last subpath
had more than one point in its list of points, then this is equivalent to adding a straight line
connecting the last point back to the first point, thus "closing" the shape, and then repeating the
last moveTo() call.)
New points and the lines connecting them are added to subpaths using the methods described
below. In all cases, the methods only modify the last subpath in the context's paths.
The lineTo(x, y) method must do nothing if the context has no subpaths. Otherwise, it must
connect the last point in the subpath to the given point (x, y) using a straight line, and must then
add the given point (x, y) to the subpath.
The quadraticCurveTo(cpx, cpy, x, y) method must do nothing if the context has no

subpaths. Otherwise it must connect the last point in the subpath to the given point (x, y) using
a quadratic Bézier curve with control point (cpx, cpy), and must then add the given point (x, y)
to the subpath. [BEZIER]
The bezierCurveTo(cp1x, cp1y, cp2x, cp2y, x, y) method must do nothing if the context
has no subpaths. Otherwise, it must connect the last point in the subpath to the given point (x,
y) using a cubic Bézier curve with control points (cp1x, cp1y) and (cp2x, cp2y). Then, it must
add the point (x, y) to the subpath. [BEZIER]
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The arcTo(x1, y1, x2, y2, radius) method must do nothing if the context has no subpaths.
If the context does have a subpath, then the behavior depends on the arguments and the last
point in the subpath.
Negative values for radius must cause the implementation to raise an INDEX_SIZE_ERR
exception.
Let the point (x0, y0) be the last point in the subpath.
If the point (x0, y0) is equal to the point (x1, y1), or if the point (x1, y1) is equal to the point (x2,
y2), or if the radius radius is zero, then the method must add the point (x1, y1) to the subpath,
and connect that point to the previous point (x0, y0) by a straight line.
Otherwise, if the points (x0, y0), (x1, y1), and (x2, y2) all lie on a single straight line, then: if the
direction from (x0, y0) to (x1, y1) is the same as the direction from (x1, y1) to (x2, y2), then the
method must add the point (x1, y1) to the subpath, and connect that point to the previous point
(x0, y0) by a straight line; otherwise, the direction from (x0, y0) to (x1, y1) is the opposite of the
direction from (x1, y1) to (x2, y2), and the method must add a point (x∞, y∞) to the subpath, and
connect that point to the previous point (x0, y0) by a straight line, where (x∞, y∞) is the point
that is infinitely far away from (x1, y1), that lies on the same line as (x0, y0), (x1, y1), and (x2,
y2), and that is on the same side of (x1, y1) on that line as (x2, y2).
Otherwise, let The Arc be the shortest arc given by circumference of the circle that has radius
radius, and that has one point tangent to the half-infinite line that crosses the point (x0, y0) and
ends at the point (x1, y1), and that has a different point tangent to the half-infinite line that ends
at the point (x1, y1) and crosses the point (x2, y2). The points at which this circle touches these
two lines are called the start and end tangent points respectively.
The method must connect the point (x0, y0) to the start tangent point by a straight line, adding
the start tangent point to the subpath, and then must connect the start tangent point to the end
tangent point by The Arc, adding the end tangent point to the subpath.
The arc(x, y, radius, startAngle, endAngle, anticlockwise) method draws an arc. If

the context has any subpaths, then the method must add a straight line from the last point in
the subpath to the start point of the arc. In any case, it must draw the arc between the start
point of the arc and the end point of the arc, and add the start and end points of the arc to the
subpath. The arc and its start and end points are defined as follows:
Consider a circle that has its origin at (x, y) and that has radius radius. The points at startAngle
and endAngle along this circle's circumference, measured in radians clockwise from the positive
x-axis, are the start and end points respectively.
If the anticlockwise argument is false and endAngle-startAngle is equal to or greater than 2π, or,
if the anticlockwise argument is true and startAngle-endAngle is equal to or greater than 2π,
then the arc is the whole circumference of this circle.
Otherwise, the arc is the path along the circumference of this circle from the start point to the
end point, going anti-clockwise if the anticlockwise argument is true, and clockwise otherwise.
Since the points are on the circle, as opposed to being simply angles from zero, the arc can
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never cover an angle greater than 2π radians. If the two points are the same, or if the radius is
zero, then the arc is defined as being of zero length in both directions.
Negative values for radius must cause the implementation to raise an INDEX_SIZE_ERR
exception.
The rect(x, y, w, h) method must create a new subpath containing just the four points (x, y),
(x+w, y), (x+w, y+h), (x, y+h), with those four points connected by straight lines, and must then
mark the subpath as closed. It must then create a new subpath with the point (x, y) as the only
point in the subpath.
The fill() method must fill all the subpaths of the current path, using fillStyle, and using
the non-zero winding number rule. Open subpaths must be implicitly closed when being filled
(without affecting the actual subpaths).
Note: Thus, if two overlapping but otherwise independent subpaths have

opposite windings, they cancel out and result in no fill. If they have the same
winding, that area just gets painted once.
The stroke() method must calculate the strokes of all the subpaths of the current path, using
the lineWidth, lineCap, lineJoin, and (if appropriate) miterLimit attributes, and then fill the
combined stroke area using the strokeStyle, attribute.
Note: Since the subpaths are all stroked as one, overlapping parts of the paths
in one stroke operation are treated as if their union was what was painted.
Paths, when filled or stroked, must be painted without affecting the current path, and must be
subject to shadow effects (page 254), global alpha (page 248), the clipping region (page 258),
and global composition operators (page 248). (Transformations affect the path when the path is
created, not when it is painted, though the stroke style is still affected by the transformation
during painting.)
Zero-length line segments must be pruned before stroking a path. Empty subpaths must be
ignored.
The clip() method must create a new clipping region by calculating the intersection of the
current clipping region and the area described by the current path, using the non-zero winding
number rule. Open subpaths must be implicitly closed when computing the clipping region,
without affecting the actual subpaths. The new clipping region replaces the current clipping
region.
When the context is initialized, the clipping region must be set to the rectangle with the top left
corner at (0,0) and the width and height of the coordinate space.
The isPointInPath(x, y) method must return true if the point given by the x and y
coordinates passed to the method, when treated as coordinates in the canvas coordinate space
unaffected by the current transformation, is inside the current path; and must return false
otherwise. Points on the path itself are considered to be inside the path. If either of the
arguments is infinite or NaN, then the method must return false.
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4.7.11.1.9. Text
The font DOM attribute, on setting, must be parsed the same way as the 'font' property of CSS
(but without supporting property-independent stylesheet syntax like 'inherit'), and the resulting
font must be assigned to the context, with the 'line-height' component forced to 'normal'. [CSS]
Font names must be interpreted in the context of the canvas element's stylesheets; any fonts
embedded using @font-face must therefore be available. [CSSWEBFONTS]
Only vector fonts should be used by the user agent; if a user agent were to use bitmap fonts
then transformations would likely make the font look very ugly.
On getting, the font attribute must return the serialized form of the current font of the context.
[CSSOM]
When the context is created, the font of the context must be set to 10px sans-serif. When the
'font-size' component is set to lengths using percentages, 'em' or 'ex' units, or the 'larger' or
'smaller' keywords, these must be interpreted relative to the computed value of the 'font-size'
property of the corresponding canvas element at the time that the attribute is set. When the
'font-weight' component is set to the relative values 'bolder' and 'lighter', these must be
interpreted relative to the computed value of the 'font-weight' property of the corresponding
canvas element at the time that the attribute is set. If the computed values are undefined for a
particular case (e.g. because the canvas element is not in a document), then the relative
keywords must be interpreted relative to the normal-weight 10px sans-serif default.
The textAlign DOM attribute, on getting, must return the current value. On setting, if the value
is one of start, end, left, right, or center, then the value must be changed to the new value.
Otherwise, the new value must be ignored. When the context is created, the textAlign attribute
must initially have the value start.
The textBaseline DOM attribute, on getting, must return the current value. On setting, if the
value is one of top, hanging, middle, alphabetic, ideographic, or bottom, then the value must
be changed to the new value. Otherwise, the new value must be ignored. When the context is
created, the textBaseline attribute must initially have the value alphabetic.
The textBaseline attribute's allowed keywords correspond to alignment points in the font:
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The keywords map to these alignment points as follows:
top
The top of the em square
hanging
The hanging baseline
middle
The middle of the em square
alphabetic
The alphabetic baseline
ideographic
The ideographic baseline
bottom
The bottom of the em square
The fillText() and strokeText() methods take three or four arguments, text, x, y, and
optionally maxWidth, and render the given text at the given (x, y) coordinates ensuring that the
text isn't wider than maxWidth if specified, using the current font, textAlign, and
textBaseline values. Specifically, when the methods are called, the user agent must run the
following steps:
1. Let font be the current font of the browsing context, as given by the font attribute.
2. Replace all the space characters (page 36) in text with U+0020 SPACE characters.
3. Form a hypothetical infinitely wide CSS line box containing a single inline box containing
the text text, with all the properties at their initial values except the 'font' property of
the inline element set to font and the 'direction' property of the inline element set to the
'direction' property of the canvas element. [CSS]
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4. If the maxWidth argument was specified and the hypothetical width of the inline box in
the hypothetical line box is greater than maxWidth CSS pixels, then change font to have
a more condensed font (if one is available or if a reasonably readable one can be
synthesized by applying a horizontal scale factor to the font) or a smaller font, and
return to the previous step.
5. Let the anchor point be a point on the inline box, determined by the textAlign and
textBaseline values, as follows:
Horizontal position:
If textAlign is left
If textAlign is start and the 'direction' property on the canvas element has a
computed value of 'ltr'
If textAlign is end and the 'direction' property on the canvas element has a
computed value of 'rtl'
Let the anchor point's horizontal position be the left edge of the inline box.
If textAlign is right
If textAlign is end and the 'direction' property on the canvas element has a
computed value of 'ltr'
If textAlign is start and the 'direction' property on the canvas element has a
computed value of 'rtl'
Let the anchor point's horizontal position be the right edge of the inline box.
If textAlign is center
Let the anchor point's horizontal position be half way between the left and right
edges of the inline box.
Vertical position:
If textBaseline is top
Let the anchor point's vertical position be the top of the em box of the first available
font of the inline box.
If textBaseline is hanging
Let the anchor point's vertical position be the hanging baseline of the first available
font of the inline box.
If textBaseline is middle
Let the anchor point's vertical position be half way between the bottom and the top
of the em box of the first available font of the inline box.
If textBaseline is alphabetic
Let the anchor point's vertical position be the alphabetic baseline of the first
available font of the inline box.
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If textBaseline is ideographic
Let the anchor point's vertical position be the ideographic baseline of the first
If textBaseline is bottom
Let the anchor point's vertical position be the bottom of the em box of the first
6. Paint the hypothetical inline box as the shape given by the text's glyphs, as transformed
by the current transformation matrix (page 247), and anchored and sized so that before
applying the current transformation matrix (page 247), the anchor point is at (x, y) and
each CSS pixel is mapped to one coordinate space unit.
For fillText() fillStyle must be applied to the glyphs and strokeStyle must be
ignored. For strokeText() the reverse holds and strokeStyle must be applied to the
glyph outlines and fillStyle must be ignored.
Text is painted without affecting the current path, and is subject to shadow effects (page
254), global alpha (page 248), the clipping region (page 258), and global composition
operators (page 248).
The measureText() method takes one argument, text. When the method is invoked, the user
agent must replace all the space characters (page 36) in text with U+0020 SPACE characters,
and then must form a hypothetical infinitely wide CSS line box containing a single inline box
containing the text text, with all the properties at their initial values except the 'font' property of
the inline element set to the current font of the browsing context, as given by the font attribute,
and must then return a new TextMetrics object with its width attribute set to the width of that
inline box, in CSS pixels. [CSS]
The TextMetrics interface is used for the objects returned from measureText(). It has one
attribute, width, which is set by the measureText() method.
Note: Glyphs rendered using fillText() and strokeText() can spill out of the
box given by the font size (the em square size) and the width returned by
measureText() (the text width). This version of the specification does not
provide a way to obtain the bounding box dimensions of the text. If the text is
to be rendered and removed, care needs to be taken to replace the entire area
of the canvas that the clipping region covers, not just the box given by the em
square height and measured text width.
Note: A future version of the 2D context API may provide a way to render
fragments of documents, rendered using CSS, straight to the canvas. This
would be provided in preference to a dedicated way of doing multiline layout.
4.7.11.1.10. Images
To draw images onto the canvas, the drawImage method can be used.
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This method is overloaded with three variants: drawImage(image, dx, dy), drawImage(image,
dx, dy, dw, dh), and drawImage(image, sx, sy, sw, sh, dx, dy, dw, dh). (Actually it is
overloaded with six; each of those three can take either an HTMLImageElement or an
HTMLCanvasElement for the image argument.) If not specified, the dw and dh arguments must
default to the values of sw and sh, interpreted such that one CSS pixel in the image is treated as
one unit in the canvas coordinate space. If the sx, sy, sw, and sh arguments are omitted, they
must default to 0, 0, the image's intrinsic width in image pixels, and the image's intrinsic height
in image pixels, respectively.
The image argument must be an instance of an HTMLImageElement or HTMLCanvasElement. If

the image is of the wrong type or null, the implementation must raise a TYPE_MISMATCH_ERR
exception.
If the image argument is an HTMLImageElement object whose complete attribute is false, then
the implementation must raise an INVALID_STATE_ERR exception.
The source rectangle is the rectangle whose corners are the four points (sx, sy), (sx+sw, sy),
(sx+sw, sy+sh), (sx, sy+sh).
If the source rectangle is not entirely within the source image, or if one of the sw or sh
arguments is zero, the implementation must raise an INDEX_SIZE_ERR exception.
The destination rectangle is the rectangle whose corners are the four points (dx, dy), (dx+dw,
dy), (dx+dw, dy+dh), (dx, dy+dh).
When drawImage() is invoked, the region of the image specified by the source rectangle must
be painted on the region of the canvas specified by the destination rectangle, after applying the
current transformation matrix (page 247) to the points of the destination rectangle.
263
Note: When a canvas is drawn onto itself, the drawing model requires the
source to be copied before the image is drawn back onto the canvas, so it is
possible to copy parts of a canvas onto overlapping parts of itself.
When the drawImage() method is passed, as its image argument, an animated image, the
poster frame of the animation, or the first frame of the animation if there is no poster frame,
must be used.
Images are painted without affecting the current path, and are subject to shadow effects (page
254), global alpha (page 248), the clipping region (page 258), and global composition operators
(page 248).
4.7.11.1.11. Pixel manipulation
The createImageData(sw, sh) method must return an ImageData object representing a

rectangle with a width in CSS pixels equal to the absolute magnitude of sw and a height in CSS
pixels equal to the absolute magnitude of sh, filled with transparent black.
The getImageData(sx, sy, sw, sh) method must return an ImageData object representing the
underlying pixel data for the area of the canvas denoted by the rectangle whose corners are the
four points (sx, sy), (sx+sw, sy), (sx+sw, sy+sh), (sx, sy+sh), in canvas coordinate space units.
Pixels outside the canvas must be returned as transparent black. Pixels must be returned as
non-premultiplied alpha values.
If any of the arguments to createImageData() or getImageData() are infinite or NaN, the

method must instead raise a NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR exception. If either the sw or sh arguments are
zero, the method must instead raise an INDEX_SIZE_ERR exception.
ImageData objects must be initialized so that their width attribute is set to w, the number of
physical device pixels per row in the image data, their height attribute is set to h, the number of
rows in the image data, and their data attribute is initialized to a CanvasPixelArray object
holding the image data. At least one pixel's worth of image data must be returned.
The CanvasPixelArray object provides ordered, indexed access to the color components of
each pixel of the image data. The data must be represented in left-to-right order, row by row top
to bottom, starting with the top left, with each pixel's red, green, blue, and alpha components
being given in that order for each pixel. Each component of each device pixel represented in this
array must be in the range 0..255, representing the 8 bit value for that component. The
components must be assigned consecutive indices starting with 0 for the top left pixel's red
component.
The CanvasPixelArray object thus represents h×w×4 integers. The length attribute of a
CanvasPixelArray object must return this number.
The XXX5(index) method must return the value of the indexth component in the array.
The XXX6(index, value) method must set the value of the indexth component in the array to
value. JS undefined values must be converted to zero. Other values must first be converted to
numbers using JavaScript's ToNumber algorithm, and if the result is a NaN value, then the value
264
be must converted to zero. If the result is less than 0, it must be clamped to zero. If the result is
more than 255, it must be clamped to 255. If the number is not an integer, it must be rounded to
the nearest integer using the IEEE 754r convertToIntegerTiesToEven rounding mode. [ECMA262]
[IEEE754R]
Note: The width and height (w and h) might be different from the sw and sh
arguments to the above methods, e.g. if the canvas is backed by a
high-resolution bitmap, or if the sw and sh arguments are negative.
The putImageData(imagedata, dx, dy) and putImageData(imagedata, dx, dy, dirtyX,

dirtyY, dirtyWidth, dirtyHeight) methods write data from ImageData structures back to
the canvas.
If any of the arguments to the method are infinite or NaN, the method must raise an
NOT_SUPPORTED_ERR exception.
If the first argument to the method is null or not an ImageData object then the putImageData()
method must raise a TYPE_MISMATCH_ERR exception.
When the last four arguments are omitted, they must be assumed to have the values 0, 0, the
width member of the imagedata structure, and the height member of the imagedata structure,
respectively.
When invoked with arguments that do not, per the last few paragraphs, cause an exception to
be raised, the putImageData() method must act as follows:
1. Let dxdevice be the x-coordinate of the device pixel in the underlying pixel data of the
canvas corresponding to the dx coordinate in the canvas coordinate space.
Let dydevice be the y-coordinate of the device pixel in the underlying pixel data of the
canvas corresponding to the dy coordinate in the canvas coordinate space.
2. If dirtyWidth is negative, let dirtyX be dirtyX+dirtyWidth, and let dirtyWidth be equal to

the absolute magnitude of dirtyWidth.
If dirtyHeight is negative, let dirtyY be dirtyY+dirtyHeight, and let dirtyHeight be equal to

the absolute magnitude of dirtyHeight.
3. If dirtyX is negative, let dirtyWidth be dirtyWidth+dirtyX, and let dirtyX be zero.
If dirtyY is negative, let dirtyHeight be dirtyHeight+dirtyY, and let dirtyY be zero.
4. If dirtyX+dirtyWidth is greater than the width attribute of the imagedata argument, let
dirtyWidth be the value of that width attribute, minus the value of dirtyX.
If dirtyY+dirtyHeight is greater than the height attribute of the imagedata argument, let
dirtyHeight be the value of that height attribute, minus the value of dirtyY.
5. If, after those changes, either dirtyWidth or dirtyHeight is negative or zero, stop these
steps without affecting the canvas.
265
6. Otherwise, for all integer values of x and y where dirtyX ≤ x < dirtyX+dirtyWidth and
dirtyY ≤ y < dirtyY+dirtyHeight, copy the four channels of the pixel with coordinate (x,
y) in the imagedata data structure to the pixel with coordinate (dxdevice+x, dydevice+y)
in the underlying pixel data of the canvas.
The handling of pixel rounding when the specified coordinates do not exactly map to the device
coordinate space is not defined by this specification, except that the following must result in no
visible changes to the rendering:
context.putImageData(context.getImageData(x, y, w, h), x, y);
...for any value of x, y, w, and h, and the following two calls:
context.createImageData(w, h);
context.getImageData(0, 0, w, h);
...must return ImageData objects with the same dimensions, for any value of w and h. In other
words, while user agents may round the arguments of these methods so that they map to device
pixel boundaries, any rounding performed must be performed consistently for all of the
createImageData(), getImageData() and putImageData() operations.
The current path, transformation matrix (page 247), shadow attributes (page 254), global alpha
(page 248), the clipping region (page 258), and global composition operator (page 248) must
not affect the getImageData() and putImageData() methods.
The data returned by getImageData() is at the resolution of the canvas backing store,
which is likely to not be one device pixel to each CSS pixel if the display used is a high
resolution display.
In the following example, the script generates an ImageData object so that it can draw onto
it.
// canvas is a reference to a <canvas> element

// create a blank slate

var data = context.createImageData(canvas.width, canvas.height);
// create some plasma

FillPlasma(data, 'green'); // green plasma
// add a cloud to the plasma

AddCloud(data, data.width/2, data.height/2); // put a cloud in the middle
// paint the plasma+cloud on the canvas

context.putImageData(data, 0, 0);
// support methods
function FillPlasma(data, color) { ... }
function AddCloud(data, x, y) { ... }
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Here is an example of using getImageData() and putImageData() to implement an edge
detection filter.
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
<title>Edge detection demo</title>
<script>
var image = new Image();
function init() {
image.onload = demo;
image.src = "image.jpeg";
}
function demo() {
var canvas = document.getElementsByTagName('canvas')[0];
// draw the image onto the canvas

context.drawImage(image, 0, 0);
// get the image data to manipulate

var input = context.getImageData(0, 0, canvas.width, canvas.height);
// get an empty slate to put the data into

var output = context.crateImageData(canvas.width, canvas.height);
// alias some variables for convenience

// notice that we are using input.width and input.height here
// as they might not be the same as canvas.width and canvas.height
// (in particular, they might be different on high-res displays)
var w = input.width, h = input.height;
var inputData = input.data;
var outputData = output.data;
// edge detection
for (var y = 1; y < h-1; y += 1) {
for (var x = 1; x < w-1; x += 1) {
for (var c = 0; c < 3; c += 1) {
var i = (y*w + x)*4 + c;
outputData[i] = 127 + -inputData[i - w*4 - 4] - inputData[i
- w*4] - inputData[i - w*4 + 4] +
-inputData[i - 4] +
8*inputData[i] - inputData[i + 4] +
-inputData[i + w*4 - 4] - inputData[i
+ w*4] - inputData[i + w*4 + 4];
}
outputData[(y*w + x)*4 + 3] = 255; // alpha
}
}
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// put the image data back after manipulation
context.putImageData(output, 0, 0);
}
</script>
</head>
<body onload="init()">
<canvas></canvas>
</body>
</html>
4.7.11.1.12. Drawing model
When a shape or image is painted, user agents must follow these steps, in the order given (or
act as if they do):
1. Render the shape or image, creating image A, as described in the previous sections. For
shapes, the current fill, stroke, and line styles must be honored, and the stroke must
itself also be subjected to the current transformation matrix.
2. Render the shadow from image A, using the current shadow styles, creating image B.
3. Multiply the alpha component of every pixel in B by globalAlpha.
4. Within the clipping region, composite B over the current canvas bitmap using the current
composition operator.
5. Multiply the alpha component of every pixel in A by globalAlpha.
6. Within the clipping region, composite A over the current canvas bitmap using the current
composition operator.
4.7.11.2. Color spaces and color correction
The canvas APIs must perform color correction at only two points: when rendering images with
their own gamma correction and color space information onto the canvas, to convert the image
to the color space used by the canvas (e.g. using the drawImage() method with an
HTMLImageElement object), and when rendering the actual canvas bitmap to the output device.
Note: Thus, in the 2D context, colors used to draw shapes onto the canvas will
exactly match colors obtained through the getImageData() method.
The toDataURL() method must not include color space information in the resource returned.
Where the output format allows it, the color of pixels in resources created by toDataURL() must
match those returned by the getImageData() method.
In user agents that support CSS, the color space used by a canvas element must match the
color space used for processing any colors for that element in CSS.
268
The gamma correction and color space information of images must be handled in such a way
that an image rendered directly using an img element would use the same colors as one painted
on a canvas element that is then itself rendered. Furthermore, the rendering of images that
have no color correction information (such as those returned by the toDataURL() method) must
be rendered with no color correction.
Note: Thus, in the 2D context, calling the drawImage() method to render the
output of the toDataURL() method to the canvas, given the appropriate
dimensions, has no visible effect.
4.7.11.3. Security with canvas elements
Information leakage can occur if scripts from one origin (page 363) can access information
(e.g. read pixels) from images from another origin (one that isn't the same (page 366)).
To mitigate this, canvas elements are defined to have a flag indicating whether they are
origin-clean. All canvas elements must start with their origin-clean set to true. The flag must be
set to false if any of the following actions occur:
• The element's 2D context's drawImage() method is called with an HTMLImageElement

whose origin (page 363) is not the same (page 366) as that of the Document object that
owns the canvas element.
• The element's 2D context's drawImage() method is called with an HTMLCanvasElement

whose origin-clean flag is false.
• The element's 2D context's fillStyle attribute is set to a CanvasPattern object that

was created from an HTMLImageElement whose origin (page 363) was not the same
(page 366) as that of the Document object that owns the canvas element when the
pattern was created.
• The element's 2D context's fillStyle attribute is set to a CanvasPattern object that

was created from an HTMLCanvasElement whose origin-clean flag was false when the
• The element's 2D context's strokeStyle attribute is set to a CanvasPattern object that

was created from an HTMLImageElement whose origin (page 363) was not the same
(page 366) as that of the Document object that owns the canvas element when the
• The element's 2D context's strokeStyle attribute is set to a CanvasPattern object that

was created from an HTMLCanvasElement whose origin-clean flag was false when the
Whenever the toDataURL() method of a canvas element whose origin-clean flag is set to false is
called, the method must raise a security exception (page 369).
269
Whenever the getImageData() method of the 2D context of a canvas element whose
origin-clean flag is set to false is called with otherwise correct arguments, the method must raise
a security exception (page 369).
Note: Even resetting the canvas state by changing its width or height
attributes doesn't reset the origin-clean flag.
4.7.12 The map element
Categories

Content model:
name
DOM interface:
interface HTMLMapElement : HTMLElement {

readonly attribute HTMLCollection areas;
readonly attribute HTMLCollection images;
};
The map element, in conjunction with any area element descendants, defines an image map
(page 273).
The name attribute gives the map a name so that it can be referenced. The attribute must be
present and must have a non-empty value. Whitespace is significant in this attribute's value. If
the id attribute is also specified, both attributes must have the same value.
The areas attribute must return an HTMLCollection rooted at the map element, whose filter
matches only area elements.
The images attribute must return an HTMLCollection rooted at the Document node, whose filter
matches only img and object elements that are associated with this map element according to
the image map (page 273) processing model.
The DOM attribute name must reflect (page 55) the content attribute of the same name.
270
4.7.13 The area element
Categories

Where phrasing content (page 90) is expected, but only if there is a map element
ancestor.
Content model:
Empty.
alt
coords
shape
href
target
ping
rel
media
hreflang
type
DOM interface:
interface HTMLAreaElement : HTMLElement {

attribute DOMString alt;
attribute DOMString coords;
attribute DOMString shape;
attribute DOMString ping;
};
The area element represents either a hyperlink with some text and a corresponding area on an
image map (page 273), or a dead area on an image map.
If the area element has an href attribute, then the area element represents a hyperlink (page
436); the alt attribute, which must then be present, specifies the text.
However, if the area element has no href attribute, then the area represented by the element
cannot be selected, and the alt attribute must be omitted.
In both cases, the shape and coords attributes specify the area.
271
The shape attribute is an enumerated attribute (page 54). The following table lists the keywords
defined for this attribute. The states given in the first cell of the rows with keywords give the
states to which those keywords map. Some of the keywords are non-conforming, as noted in the
last column.
State Keywords Notes

Circle state circ Non-conforming
circle
Default state default
Polygon state poly
polygon Non-conforming
Rectangle state rect
rectangle Non-conforming
The attribute may be omitted. The missing value default is the rectangle (page 272) state.
The coords attribute must, if specified, contain a valid list of integers (page 42). This attribute
gives the coordinates for the shape described by the shape attribute. The processing for this
attribute is described as part of the image map (page 273) processing model.
In the circle state (page 272), area elements must have a coords attribute present, with three
integers, the last of which must be non-negative. The first integer must be the distance in CSS
pixels from the left edge of the image to the center of the circle, the second integer must be the
distance in CSS pixels from the top edge of the image to the center of the circle, and the third
integer must be the radius of the circle, again in CSS pixels.
In the default state (page 272) state, area elements must not have a coords attribute.
In the polygon state (page 272), area elements must have a coords attribute with at least six
integers, and the number of integers must be even. Each pair of integers must represent a
coordinate given as the distances from the left and the top of the image in CSS pixels
respectively, and all the coordinates together must represent the points of the polygon, in order.
In the rectangle state (page 272), area elements must have a coords attribute with exactly four
integers, the first of which must be less than the third, and the second of which must be less
than the fourth. The four points must represent, respectively, the distance from the left edge of
the image to the top left side of the rectangle, the distance from the top edge to the top side,
the distance from the left edge to the right side, and the distance from the top edge to the
bottom side, all in CSS pixels.
When user agents allow users to follow hyperlinks (page 437) created using the area element,
as described in the next section, the href, target and ping attributes decide how the link is
followed. The rel, media, hreflang, and type attributes may be used to indicate to the user the
likely nature of the target resource before the user follows the link.
The target, ping, rel, media, hreflang, and type attributes must be omitted if the href
attribute is not present.
The activation behavior (page 26) of area elements is to run the following steps:
272
1. If the DOMActivate event in question is not trusted (i.e. a click() method call was the
reason for the event being dispatched), and the area element's target attribute is ...
then raise an INVALID_ACCESS_ERR exception.
2. Otherwise, the user agent must follow the hyperlink (page 437) defined by the area
element, if any.
Note: One way that a user agent can enable users to follow hyperlinks is by
allowing area elements to be clicked, or focussed and activated by the
keyboard. This will cause the aforementioned activation behavior (page 26) to
be invoked.
The DOM attributes alt, coords, href, target, ping, rel, media, hreflang, and type, each
must reflect (page 55) the respective content attributes of the same name.
The DOM attribute shape must reflect (page 55) the shape content attribute, limited to only
known values (page 55).
4.7.14 Image maps
An image map allows geometric areas on an image to be associated with hyperlinks (page
436).
An image, in the form of an img element or an object element representing an image, may be
associated with an image map (in the form of a map element) by specifying a usemap attribute on
the img or object element. The usemap attribute, if specified, must be a valid hash-name
reference (page 54) to a map element.
If an img element or an object element representing an image has a usemap attribute specified,
user agents must process it as follows:
1. First, rules for parsing a hash-name reference (page 54) to a map element must be
followed. This will return either an element (the map) or null.
2. If that returned null, then abort these steps. The image is not associated with an image
map after all.
3. Otherwise, the user agent must collect all the area elements that are descendants of the
map. Let those be the areas.
Having obtained the list of area elements that form the image map (the areas), interactive user
agents must process the list in one of two ways.
If the user agent intends to show the text that the img element represents, then it must use the
following steps.
273
Note: In user agents that do not support images, or that have images
disabled, object elements cannot represent images, and thus this section
never applies (the fallback content (page 91) is shown instead). The following
steps therefore only apply to img elements.
1. Remove all the area elements in areas that have no href attribute.
2. Remove all the area elements in areas that have no alt attribute, or whose alt
attribute's value is the empty string, if there is another area element in areas with the
same value in the href attribute and with a non-empty alt attribute.
3. Each remaining area element in areas represents a hyperlink (page 436). Those
hyperlinks should all be made available to the user in a manner associated with the text
of the img.
In this context, user agents may represent area and img elements with no specified alt
attributes, or whose alt attributes are the empty string or some other non-visible text,
in a user-agent-defined fashion intended to indicate the lack of suitable author-provided
text.
If the user agent intends to show the image and allow interaction with the image to select
hyperlinks, then the image must be associated with a set of layered shapes, taken from the area
elements in areas, in reverse tree order (so the last specified area element in the map is the
bottom-most shape, and the first element in the map, in tree order, is the top-most shape).
Each area element in areas must be processed as follows to obtain a shape to layer onto the
image:
1. Find the state that the element's shape attribute represents.
2. Use the rules for parsing a list of integers (page 42) to parse the element's coords
attribute, if it is present, and let the result be the coords list. If the attribute is absent, let
the coords list be the empty list.
3. If the number of items in the coords list is less than the minimum number given for the
area element's current state, as per the following table, then the shape is empty; abort
these steps.
State Minimum number of items

Circle state (page 272) 3
Default state (page 272) 0
Polygon state (page 272) 6
Rectangle state (page 272) 4
4. Check for excess items in the coords list as per the entry in the following list
corresponding to the shape attribute's state:
↪ Circle state (page 272)

Drop any items in the list beyond the third.
274
↪ Default state (page 272)
Drop all items in the list.
↪ Polygon state (page 272)

Drop the last item if there's an odd number of items.
↪ Rectangle state (page 272)

Drop any items in the list beyond the fourth.
5. If the shape attribute represents the rectangle state (page 272), and the first number in
the list is numerically less than the third number in the list, then swap those two
numbers around.
6. If the shape attribute represents the rectangle state (page 272), and the second number
in the list is numerically less than the fourth number in the list, then swap those two
numbers around.
7. If the shape attribute represents the circle state (page 272), and the third number in the
list is less than or equal to zero, then the shape is empty; abort these steps.
8. Now, the shape represented by the element is the one described for the entry in the list
below corresponding to the state of the shape attribute:
↪ Circle state (page 272)

Let x be the first number in coords, y be the second number, and r be the third
number.
The shape is a circle whose center is x CSS pixels from the left edge of the
image and x CSS pixels from the top edge of the image, and whose radius is r
pixels.
↪ Default state (page 272)

The shape is a rectangle that exactly covers the entire image.
↪ Polygon state (page 272)

Let xi be the (2i)th entry in coords, and yi be the (2i+1)th entry in coords (the
first entry in coords being the one with index 0).
Let the coordinates be (xi, yi), interpreted in CSS pixels measured from the top
left of the image, for all integer values of i from 0 to (N/2)-1, where N is the
number of items in coords.
The shape is a polygon whose vertices are given by the coordinates, and whose
interior is established using the even-odd rule. [GRAPHICS]
↪ Rectangle state (page 272)

Let x1 be the first number in coords, y1 be the second number, x2 be the third
number, and y2 be the fourth number.
275
The shape is a rectangle whose top-left corner is given by the coordinate (x1,
y1) and whose bottom right corner is given by the coordinate (x2, y2), those
coordinates being interpreted as CSS pixels from the top left corner of the
image.
For historical reasons, the coordinates must be interpreted relative to the displayed
image, even if it stretched using CSS or the image element's width and height
attributes.
Mouse clicks on an image associated with a set of layered shapes per the above algorithm must
be dispatched to the top-most shape covering the point that the pointing device indicated (if
any), and then, must be dispatched again (with a new Event object) to the image element itself.
User agents may also allow individual area elements representing hyperlinks (page 436) to be
selected and activated (e.g. using a keyboard); events from this are not also propagated to the
image.
Note: Because a map element (and its area elements) can be associated with
multiple img and object elements, it is possible for an area element to
correspond to multiple focusable areas of the document.
Image maps are live (page 28); if the DOM is mutated, then the user agent must act as if it had
rerun the algorithms for image maps.
4.7.15 MathML
The math element from the MathML namespace (page 593) falls into the embedded content
(page 90) category for the purposes of the content models in this specification.
User agents must handle text other than inter-element whitespace (page 88) found in MathML
elements whose content models do not allow raw text by pretending for the purposes of MathML
content models, layout, and rendering that that text is actually wrapped in an mtext element in
the MathML namespace (page 593). (Such text is not, however, conforming.)
User agents must act as if any MathML element whose contents does not match the element's
content model was replaced, for the purposes of MathML layout and rendering, by an merror
element in the MathML namespace (page 593) containing some appropriate error message.
To enable authors to use MathML tools that only accept MathML in its XML form, interactive
HTML user agents are encouraged to provide a way to export any MathML fragment as a
namespace-well-formed XML fragment.
4.7.16 SVG
The svg element from the SVG namespace (page 593) falls into the embedded content (page
90) category for the purposes of the content models in this specification.
276
To enable authors to use SVG tools that only accept SVG in its XML form, interactive HTML user
agents are encouraged to provide a way to export any SVG fragment as a
namespace-well-formed XML fragment.
4.7.17 Dimension attributes
The width and height attributes on img, embed, object, and video elements may be specified
to give the dimensions of the visual content of the element (the width and height respectively,
relative to the nominal direction of the output medium), in CSS pixels. The attributes, if
specified, must have values that are valid positive non-zero integers (page 42).
The specified dimensions given may differ from the dimensions specified in the resource itself,
since the resource may have a resolution that differs from the CSS pixel resolution. (On screens,
CSS pixels have a resolution of 96ppi, but in general the CSS pixel resolution depends on the
reading distance.) If both attributes are specified, then the ratio of the specified width to the
specified height must be the same as the ratio of the logical width to the logical height in the
resource. The two attributes must be omitted if the resource in question does not have both a
logical width and a logical height.
To parse the attributes, user agents must use the rules for parsing dimension values (page 42).
This will return either an integer length, a percentage value, or nothing. The user agent
requirements for processing the values obtained from parsing these attributes are described in
the rendering section (page 608). If one of these attributes, when parsing, returns no value, it
must be treated, for the purposes of those requirements, as if it was not specified.
The width and height DOM attributes on the embed, object, and video elements must reflect
(page 55) the content attributes of the same name.
4.8 Tabular data
4.8.1 Introduction
...examples, how to write tables accessibly, a brief mention of the table model, etc...
4.8.2 The table element
Categories

277
Content model:
In this order: optionally a caption element, followed by either zero or more colgroup
elements, followed optionally by a thead element, followed optionally by a tfoot element,
followed by either zero or more tbody elements or one or more tr elements, followed
optionally by a tfoot element (but there can only be one tfoot element child in total).
None.
DOM interface:
interface HTMLTableElement : HTMLElement {

attribute HTMLTableCaptionElement caption;
HTMLElement createCaption();
void deleteCaption();
attribute HTMLTableSectionElement tHead;
HTMLElement createTHead();
void deleteTHead();
attribute HTMLTableSectionElement tFoot;
HTMLElement createTFoot();
void deleteTFoot();
readonly attribute HTMLCollection tBodies;
HTMLElement createTBody();
readonly attribute HTMLCollection rows;
HTMLElement insertRow(in long index);
void deleteRow(in long index);
};
The table element represents data with more than one dimension (a table (page 288)).
we need some editorial text on how layout tables are bad practice and non-conforming
The children of a table element must be, in order:
1. Zero or one caption elements.
2. Zero or more colgroup elements.
3. Zero or one thead elements.
4. Zero or one tfoot elements, if the last element in the table is not a tfoot element.
5. Either:
• Zero or more tbody elements, or
• One or more tr elements. (Only expressible in the XML serialization.)
278
6. Zero or one tfoot element, if there are no other tfoot elements in the table.
The table element takes part in the table model (page 288).
The caption DOM attribute must return, on getting, the first caption element child of the table
element, if any, or null otherwise. On setting, if the new value is a caption element, the first
caption element child of the table element, if any, must be removed, and the new value must
be inserted as the first node of the table element. If the new value is not a caption element,
then a HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR DOM exception must be raised instead.
The createCaption() method must return the first caption element child of the table
element, if any; otherwise a new caption element must be created, inserted as the first node of
the table element, and then returned.
The deleteCaption() method must remove the first caption element child of the table
element, if any.
The tHead DOM attribute must return, on getting, the first thead element child of the table
element, if any, or null otherwise. On setting, if the new value is a thead element, the first thead
element child of the table element, if any, must be removed, and the new value must be
inserted immediately before the first element in the table element that is neither a caption
element nor a colgroup element, if any, or at the end of the table otherwise. If the new value is
not a thead element, then a HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR DOM exception must be raised instead.
The createTHead() method must return the first thead element child of the table element, if
any; otherwise a new thead element must be created and inserted immediately before the first
element in the table element that is neither a caption element nor a colgroup element, if any,
or at the end of the table otherwise, and then that new element must be returned.
The deleteTHead() method must remove the first thead element child of the table element, if
any.
The tFoot DOM attribute must return, on getting, the first tfoot element child of the table
element, if any, or null otherwise. On setting, if the new value is a tfoot element, the first tfoot
element child of the table element, if any, must be removed, and the new value must be
inserted immediately before the first element in the table element that is neither a caption
element, a colgroup element, nor a thead element, if any, or at the end of the table if there are
no such elements. If the new value is not a tfoot element, then a HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR DOM
exception must be raised instead.
The createTFoot() method must return the first tfoot element child of the table element, if
any; otherwise a new tfoot element must be created and inserted immediately before the first
element in the table element that is neither a caption element, a colgroup element, nor a
thead element, if any, or at the end of the table if there are no such elements, and then that
new element must be returned.
The deleteTFoot() method must remove the first tfoot element child of the table element, if
any.
279
The tBodies attribute must return an HTMLCollection rooted at the table node, whose filter
matches only tbody elements that are children of the table element.
The createTBody() method must create a new tbody element, insert it immediately after the
last tbody element in the table element, if any, or at the end of the table element if the table
element has no tbody element children, and then must return the new tbody element.
The rows attribute must return an HTMLCollection rooted at the table node, whose filter
matches only tr elements that are either children of the table element, or children of thead,
tbody, or tfoot elements that are themselves children of the table element. The elements in
the collection must be ordered such that those elements whose parent is a thead are included
first, in tree order, followed by those elements whose parent is either a table or tbody element,
again in tree order, followed finally by those elements whose parent is a tfoot element, still in
tree order.
The behavior of the insertRow(index) method depends on the state of the table. When it is
called, the method must act as required by the first item in the following list of conditions that
describes the state of the table and the index argument:
↪ If index is less than −1 or greater than the number of elements in rows collection:
The method must raise an INDEX_SIZE_ERR exception.
↪ If the rows collection has zero elements in it, and the table has no tbody elements
in it:
The method must create a tbody element, then create a tr element, then append the
tr element to the tbody element, then append the tbody element to the table
element, and finally return the tr element.
↪ If the rows collection has zero elements in it:

The method must create a tr element, append it to the last tbody element in the table,
and return the tr element.
↪ If index is equal to −1 or equal to the number of items in rows collection:

The method must create a tr element, and append it to the parent of the last tr
element in the rows collection. Then, the newly created tr element must be returned.
↪ Otherwise:
The method must create a tr element, insert it immediately before the indexth tr
element in the rows collection, in the same parent, and finally must return the newly
created tr element.
When the deleteRow(index) method is called, the user agent must run the following steps:
1. If index is equal to −1, then index must be set to the number if items in the rows
collection, minus one.
2. Now, if index is less than zero, or greater than or equal to the number of elements in the
rows collection, the method must instead raise an INDEX_SIZE_ERR exception, and these
steps must be aborted.
280
3. Otherwise, the method must remove the indexth element in the rows collection from its
parent.
4.8.3 The caption element
Categories
None.

As the first element child of a table element.
Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The caption element represents the title of the table that is its parent, if it has a parent and
that is a table element.
The caption element takes part in the table model (page 288).
4.8.4 The colgroup element
Categories
None.

As a child of a table element, after any caption elements and before any thead, tbody,
tfoot, and tr elements.
Content model:
Zero or more col elements.
span
DOM interface:
interface HTMLTableColElement : HTMLElement {

attribute unsigned long span;
};
The colgroup element represents a group (page 289) of one or more columns (page 289) in the
table that is its parent, if it has a parent and that is a table element.
281
If the colgroup element contains no col elements, then the element may have a span content
attribute specified, whose value must be a valid non-negative integer (page 37) greater than
zero.
The colgroup element and its span attribute take part in the table model (page 288).
The span DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the content attribute of the same name. The
value must be limited to only positive non-zero numbers (page 56).
4.8.5 The col element
Categories
None.

As a child of a colgroup element that doesn't have a span attribute.
Content model:
Empty.
span
DOM interface:
HTMLTableColElement, same as for colgroup elements. This interface defines one
member, span.
If a col element has a parent and that is a colgroup element that itself has a parent that is a
table element, then the col element represents one or more columns (page 289) in the column
group (page 289) represented by that colgroup.
The element may have a span content attribute specified, whose value must be a valid
non-negative integer (page 37) greater than zero.
The col element and its span attribute take part in the table model (page 288).
The span DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the content attribute of the same name. The
4.8.6 The tbody element
Categories
None.

As a child of a table element, after any caption, colgroup, and thead elements, but only
if there are no tr elements that are children of the table element.
282
Content model:
Zero or more tr elements
None.
DOM interface:
interface HTMLTableSectionElement : HTMLElement {

readonly attribute HTMLCollection rows;
HTMLElement insertRow(in long index);
void deleteRow(in long index);
};
The HTMLTableSectionElement interface is also used for thead and tfoot elements.
The tbody element represents a block (page 289) of rows (page 288) that consist of a body of
data for the parent table element, if the tbody element has a parent and it is a table.
The tbody element takes part in the table model (page 288).
The rows attribute must return an HTMLCollection rooted at the element, whose filter matches
only tr elements that are children of the element.
The insertRow(index) method must, when invoked on an element table section, act as follows:
If index is less than −1 or greater than the number of elements in the rows collection, the
method must raise an INDEX_SIZE_ERR exception.
If index is equal to −1 or equal to the number of items in the rows collection, the method must
create a tr element, append it to the element table section, and return the newly created tr
element.
Otherwise, the method must create a tr element, insert it as a child of the table section
element, immediately before the indexth tr element in the rows collection, and finally must
return the newly created tr element.
The deleteRow(index) method must remove the indexth element in the rows collection from its
parent. If index is less than zero or greater than or equal to the number of elements in the rows
collection, the method must instead raise an INDEX_SIZE_ERR exception.
4.8.7 The thead element
Categories
None.
283
As a child of a table element, after any caption, and colgroup elements and before any
tbody, tfoot, and tr elements, but only if there are no other thead elements that are
children of the table element.
Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
HTMLTableSectionElement, as defined for tbody elements.
The thead element represents the block (page 289) of rows (page 288) that consist of the
column labels (headers) for the parent table element, if the thead element has a parent and it
is a table.
The thead element takes part in the table model (page 288).
4.8.8 The tfoot element
Categories
None.

As a child of a table element, after any caption, colgroup, and thead elements and
before any tbody and tr elements, but only if there are no other tfoot elements that are
children of the table element.
As a child of a table element, after any caption, colgroup, thead, tbody, and tr
elements, but only if there are no other tfoot elements that are children of the table
element.
Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
HTMLTableSectionElement, as defined for tbody elements.
The tfoot element represents the block (page 289) of rows (page 288) that consist of the
column summaries (footers) for the parent table element, if the tfoot element has a parent
and it is a table.
The tfoot element takes part in the table model (page 288).
284
4.8.9 The tr element
Categories
None.

As a child of a thead element.
As a child of a tbody element.
As a child of a tfoot element.
As a child of a table element, after any caption, colgroup, and thead
elements, but only if there are no tbody elements that are children of the
table element.
Content model:
Zero or more td or th elements
None.
DOM interface:
interface HTMLTableRowElement : HTMLElement {

readonly attribute long rowIndex;
readonly attribute long sectionRowIndex;
readonly attribute HTMLCollection cells;
HTMLElement insertCell(in long index);
void deleteCell(in long index);
};
The tr element represents a row (page 288) of cells (page 288) in a table (page 288).
The tr element takes part in the table model (page 288).
The rowIndex attribute must, if the element has a parent table element, or a parent tbody,
thead, or tfoot element and a grandparent table element, return the index of the tr element
in that table element's rows collection. If there is no such table element, then the attribute
must return −1.
The sectionRowIndex attribute must, if the element has a parent table, tbody, thead, or tfoot
element, return the index of the tr element in the parent element's rows collection (for tables,
that's the rows collection; for table sections, that's the rows collection). If there is no such parent
element, then the attribute must return −1.
The cells attribute must return an HTMLCollection rooted at the tr element, whose filter
matches only td and th elements that are children of the tr element.
The insertCell(index) method must act as follows:
If index is less than −1 or greater than the number of elements in the cells collection, the
method must raise an INDEX_SIZE_ERR exception.
285
If index is equal to −1 or equal to the number of items in cells collection, the method must
create a td element, append it to the tr element, and return the newly created td element.
Otherwise, the method must create a td element, insert it as a child of the tr element,
immediately before the indexth td or th element in the cells collection, and finally must return
the newly created td element.
The deleteCell(index) method must remove the indexth element in the cells collection from
its parent. If index is less than zero or greater than or equal to the number of elements in the
cells collection, the method must instead raise an INDEX_SIZE_ERR exception.
4.8.10 The td element
Categories

As a child of a tr element.
Content model:
colspan
rowspan
headers
DOM interface:
interface HTMLTableDataCellElement : HTMLTableCellElement {

attribute DOMString headers;
};
The td element represents a data cell (page 288) in a table.
The td element may have a headers content attribute specified. The headers attribute, if
specified, must contain a string consisting of an unordered set of unique space-separated tokens
(page 52), each of which must have the value of an ID of a th element taking part in the same
table (page 288) as the td element (as defined by the table model (page 288)).
The exact effect of the attribute is described in detail in the algorithm for assigning header cells
to data cells (page 294), which user agents must apply to determine the relationships between
data cells and header cells.
The td element and its colspan and rowspan attributes take part in the table model (page 288).
The headers DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the content attribute of the same name.
286
4.8.11 The th element
Categories
None.

As a child of a tr element.
Content model:
colspan
rowspan
scope
DOM interface:
interface HTMLTableHeaderCellElement : HTMLTableCellElement {

attribute DOMString scope;
};
The th element represents a header cell (page 288) in a table.
The th element may have a scope content attribute specified. The scope attribute is an
enumerated attribute (page 54) with five states, four of which have explicit keywords:
The row keyword, which maps to the row state

The row state means the header cell applies to all the remaining cells in the row.
The col keyword, which maps to the column state

The column state means the header cell applies to all the remaining cells in the column.
The rowgroup keyword, which maps to the row group state

The row group state means the header cell applies to all the remaining cells in the row
group.
The colgroup keyword, which maps to the column group state

The column group state means the header cell applies to all the remaining cells in the
column group.
The auto state

The auto state makes the header cell apply to a set of cells selected based on context.
The scope attribute's missing value default is the auto state.
The exact effect of these values is described in detail in the algorithm for assigning header cells
to data cells (page 294), which user agents must apply to determine the relationships between
data cells and header cells.
The th element and its colspan and rowspan attributes take part in the table model (page 288).
287
The scope DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the content attribute of the same name.
4.8.12 Attributes common to td and th elements
The td and th elements may have a colspan content attribute specified, whose value must be a
valid non-negative integer (page 37) greater than zero.
The td and th elements may also have a rowspan content attribute specified, whose value must
be a valid non-negative integer (page 37).
The td and th elements implement interfaces that inherit from the HTMLTableCellElement
interface:
interface HTMLTableCellElement : HTMLElement {

attribute long colSpan;
attribute long rowSpan;
readonly attribute long cellIndex;
};
The colSpan DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the content attribute of the same name. The
The rowSpan DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the content attribute of the same name. Its
default value, which must be used if parsing the attribute as a non-negative integer (page 37)
returns an error, is also 1.
The cellIndex DOM attribute must, if the element has a parent tr element, return the index of
the cell's element in the parent element's cells collection. If there is no such parent element,
then the attribute must return 0.
4.8.13 Processing model
The various table elements and their content attributes together define the table model.
A table consists of cells aligned on a two-dimensional grid of slots with coordinates (x, y). The
grid is finite, and is either empty or has one or more slots. If the grid has one or more slots, then
the x coordinates are always in the range 0 ≤ x < xwidth, and the y coordinates are always in the
range 0 ≤ y < yheight. If one or both of xwidth and yheight are zero, then the table is empty (has
no slots). Tables correspond to table elements.
A cell is a set of slots anchored at a slot (cellx, celly), and with a particular width and height such
that the cell covers all the slots with coordinates (x, y) where cellx ≤ x < cellx+width and
celly ≤ y < celly+height. Cells can either be data cells or header cells. Data cells correspond to
td elements, and have zero or more associated header cells. Header cells correspond to th
elements.
A row is a complete set of slots from x=0 to x=xwidth-1, for a particular value of y. Rows
correspond to tr elements.
288
A column is a complete set of slots from y=0 to y=yheight-1, for a particular value of x. Columns
can correspond to col elements, but in the absence of col elements are implied.
A row group is a set of rows (page 288) anchored at a slot (0, groupy) with a particular height
such that the row group covers all the slots with coordinates (x, y) where 0 ≤ x < xwidth and
groupy ≤ y < groupy+height. Row groups correspond to tbody, thead, and tfoot elements. Not
every row is necessarily in a row group.
A column group is a set of columns (page 289) anchored at a slot (groupx, 0) with a particular
width such that the column group covers all the slots with coordinates (x, y) where
groupx ≤ x < groupx+width and 0 ≤ y < yheight. Column groups correspond to colgroup
elements. Not every column is necessarily in a column group.
Row groups (page 289) cannot overlap each other. Similarly, column groups (page 289) cannot
overlap each other.
A cell (page 288) cannot cover slots that are from two or more row groups (page 289). It is,
however, possible for a cell to be in multiple column groups (page 289). All the slots that form
part of one cell are part of zero or one row groups (page 289) and zero or more column groups
(page 289).
In addition to cells (page 288), columns (page 289), rows (page 288), row groups (page 289),
and column groups (page 289), tables (page 288) can have a caption element associated with
them. This gives the table a heading, or legend.
A table model error is an error with the data represented by table elements and their
descendants. Documents must not have table model errors.
4.8.13.1. Forming a table
To determine which elements correspond to which slots in a table (page 288) associated with a
table element, to determine the dimensions of the table (xwidth and yheight), and to determine if
there are any table model errors (page 289), user agents must use the following algorithm:
1. Let xwidth be zero.
2. Let yheight be zero.
3. Let pending tfoot elements be a list of tfoot elements, initially empty.
4. Let the table be the table (page 288) represented by the table element. The xwidth and
yheight variables give the table's dimensions. The table is initially empty.
5. If the table element has no children elements, then return the table (which will be
empty), and abort these steps.
6. Associate the first caption element child of the table element with the table. If there
are no such children, then it has no associated caption element.
7. Let the current element be the first element child of the table element.
289
If a step in this algorithm ever requires the current element to be advanced to the
next child of the table when there is no such next child, then the user agent must
jump to the step labeled end, near the end of this algorithm.
8. While the current element is not one of the following elements, advance (page 290) the
current element to the next child of the table:
• colgroup
• thead
• tbody
• tfoot
• tr
9. If the current element is a colgroup, follow these substeps:
1. Column groups: Process the current element according to the appropriate case
below:
↪ If the current element has any col element children

Follow these steps:
1. Let xstart have the value of xwidth.
2. Let the current column be the first col element child of the
colgroup element.
3. Columns: If the current column col element has a span

attribute, then parse its value using the rules for parsing
non-negative integers (page 37).
If the result of parsing the value is not an error or zero, then let
span be that value.
Otherwise, if the col element has no span attribute, or if trying

to parse the attribute's value resulted in an error, then let span
be 1.
4. Increase xwidth by span.
5. Let the last span columns (page 289) in the table correspond to
the current column col element.
6. If current column is not the last col element child of the

colgroup element, then let the current column be the next col
element child of the colgroup element, and return to the step
labeled columns.
7. Let all the last columns (page 289) in the table from x=xstart to
x=xwidth-1 form a new column group (page 289), anchored at
the slot (xstart, 0), with width xwidth-xstart, corresponding to the
colgroup element.
290
↪ If the current element has no col element children
1. If the colgroup element has a span attribute, then parse its

value using the rules for parsing non-negative integers (page
37).
If the result of parsing the value is not an error or zero, then let
span be that value.
Otherwise, if the colgroup element has no span attribute, or if

trying to parse the attribute's value resulted in an error, then let
span be 1.
2. Increase xwidth by span.
3. Let the last span columns (page 289) in the table form a new
column group (page 289), anchored at the slot (xwidth-span, 0),
with width span, corresponding to the colgroup element.
2. Advance (page 290) the current element to the next child of the table.
3. While the current element is not one of the following elements, advance (page
290) the current element to the next child of the table:
• colgroup
• thead
• tbody
• tfoot
• tr
4. If the current element is a colgroup element, jump to the step labeled column
groups above.
10. Let ycurrent be zero.
11. Let the list of downward-growing cells be an empty list.
12. Rows: While the current element is not one of the following elements, advance (page
290) the current element to the next child of the table:
• thead
• tbody
• tfoot
• tr
13. If the current element is a tr, then run the algorithm for processing rows (page 292),
advance (page 290) the current element to the next child of the table, and return to the
step labeled rows.
14. Run the algorithm for ending a row group (page 292).
291
15. If the current element is a tfoot, then add that element to the list of pending tfoot
elements, advance (page 290) the current element to the next child of the table, and
return to the step labeled rows.
16. The current element is either a thead or a tbody.
Run the algorithm for processing row groups (page 292).
17. Advance (page 290) the current element to the next child of the table.
18. Return to the step labeled rows.
19. End: For each tfoot element in the list of pending tfoot elements, in tree order, run the
algorithm for processing row groups (page 292).
20. If there exists a row (page 288) or column (page 289) in the table (page 288) the table
containing only slots that do not have a cell (page 288) anchored to them, then this is a
table model error (page 289).
21. Return the table.
The algorithm for processing row groups, which is invoked by the set of steps above for
processing thead, tbody, and tfoot elements, is:
1. Let ystart have the value of yheight.
2. For each tr element that is a child of the element being processed, in tree order, run the
algorithm for processing rows (page 292).
3. If yheight > ystart, then let all the last rows (page 288) in the table from y=ystart to
y=yheight-1 form a new row group (page 289), anchored at the slot with coordinate (0,
ystart), with height yheight-ystart, corresponding to the current element.
4. Run the algorithm for ending a row group (page 292).
The algorithm for ending a row group, which is invoked by the set of steps above when
starting and ending a block of rows, is:
1. While ycurrent is less than yheight, follow these steps:
1. Run the algorithm for growing downward-growing cells (page 294).
2. Increase ycurrent by 1.
2. Empty the list of downward-growing cells.
The algorithm for processing rows, which is invoked by the set of steps above for processing
tr elements, is:
1. If yheight is equal to ycurrent, then increase yheight by 1. (ycurrent is never greater than
yheight.)
2. Let xcurrent be 0.
292
3. Let current cell be the first td or th element in the tr element being processed.
4. Run the algorithm for growing downward-growing cells (page 294).
5. Cells: While xcurrent is less than xwidth and the slot with coordinate (xcurrent, ycurrent)
already has a cell assigned to it, increase xcurrent by 1.
6. If xcurrent is equal to xwidth, increase xwidth by 1. (xcurrent is never greater than xwidth.)
7. If the current cell has a colspan attribute, then parse that attribute's value (page 37),
and let colspan be the result.
If parsing that value failed, or returned zero, or if the attribute is absent, then let colspan
be 1, instead.
8. If the current cell has a rowspan attribute, then parse that attribute's value (page 37),
and let rowspan be the result.
If parsing that value failed or if the attribute is absent, then let rowspan be 1, instead.
9. If rowspan is zero, then let cell grows downward be true, and set rowspan to 1.
Otherwise, let cell grows downward be false.
10. If xwidth < xcurrent+colspan, then let xwidth be xcurrent+colspan.
11. If yheight < ycurrent+rowspan, then let yheight be ycurrent+rowspan.
12. Let the slots with coordinates (x, y) such that xcurrent ≤ x < xcurrent+colspan and
ycurrent ≤ y < ycurrent+rowspan be covered by a new cell (page 288) c, anchored at
(xcurrent, ycurrent), which has width colspan and height rowspan, corresponding to the
current cell element.
If the current cell element is a th element, let this new cell c be a header cell; otherwise,
let it be a data cell. To establish what header cells apply to a data cell, use the algorithm
for assigning header cells to data cells (page 294) described in the next section.
If any of the slots involved already had a cell (page 288) covering them, then this is a
table model error (page 289). Those slots now have two cells overlapping.
13. If cell grows downward is true, then add the tuple {c, xcurrent, colspan} to the list of
downward-growing cells.
14. Increase xcurrent by colspan.
15. If current cell is the last td or th element in the tr element being processed, then
increase ycurrent by 1, abort this set of steps, and return to the algorithm above.
16. Let current cell be the next td or th element in the tr element being processed.
17. Return to step 5 (cells).
293
When the algorithms above require the user agent to run the algorithm for growing
downward-growing cells, the user agent must, for each {cell, cellx, width} tuple in the list of
downward-growing cells, if any, extend the cell (page 288) cell so that it also covers the slots
with coordinates (x, ycurrent), where cellx ≤ x < cellx+width.
4.8.13.2. Forming relationships between data cells and header cells
Each data cell can be assigned zero or more header cells. The algorithm for assigning
header cells to data cells is as follows.
1. For each header cell in the table, in tree order (page 28), run these substeps:
1. Let (headerx, headery) be the coordinate of the slot to which the header cell is
anchored.
2. Let headerwidth be the width of the header cell.
3. Let headerheight be the height of the header cell.
4. Let data cells be a list of data cells, initially empty.
5. Examine the scope attribute of the th element corresponding to the header cell,
and, based on its state, apply the appropriate substep:
↪ If it is in the row (page 287) state

Add all the data cells that cover slots with coordinates (slotx, sloty),
where headerx+headerwidth ≤ slotx < xwidth and
headery ≤ sloty < headery+headerheight, to the data cells list.
↪ If it is in the column (page 287) state

Add all the data cells that cover slots with coordinates (slotx, sloty),
where headerx ≤ slotx < headerx+headerwidth and
headery+headerheight ≤ sloty < yheight, to the data cells list.
↪ If it is in the row group (page 287) state

If the header cell is not in a row group (page 289), then do nothing.
Otherwise, let (0, groupy) be the slot at which the row group is
anchored, let height be the number of rows in the row group, and add
all the data cells that cover slots with coordinates (slotx, sloty), where
headerx ≤ slotx < xwidth and headery ≤ sloty < groupy+height, to the
data cells list.
↪ If it is in the column group (page 287) state

If the header cell is not anchored in a column group (page 289), then do
nothing.
Otherwise, let (groupx, 0) be the slot at which that column group is

anchored, let width be the number of columns in the column group, and
294
add all the data cells that cover slots with coordinates (slotx, sloty),
where headerx ≤ slotx < groupx+width and headery ≤ sloty < yheight, to
the data cells list.
↪ Otherwise, it is in the auto state

Run these steps:
1. If the header cell is equivalent to a wide cell (page 296), let

headerwidth equal xwidth-headerx. [UNICODE]
2. Let x equal headerx+headerwidth.
3. Horizontal: If x is equal to xwidth, then jump down to the step

below labeled vertical.
4. If there is a header cell anchored at (x, headery) with height

headerheight, then jump down to the step below labeled vertical.
5. Add all the data cells that cover slots with coordinates (slotx,
sloty), where slotx = x and
headery ≤ sloty < headery+headerheight, to the data cells list.
6. Increase x by 1.
7. Jump up to the step above labeled horizontal.
8. Vertical: Let y equal headery+headerheight.
9. If y is equal to yheight, then jump to the step below labeled end.
10. If there is a header cell cell anchored at (headerx, y), then follow
these substeps:
1. If the header cell cell is equivalent to a wide cell (page

296), then let width be xwidth-headerx. Otherwise, let
width be the width of the header cell cell.
2. If width is equal to headerwidth, then jump to the step

below labeled end.
11. Add all the data cells that cover slots with coordinates (slotx,
sloty), where headerx ≤ slotx < headerx+headerwidth and
sloty = y, to the data cells list.
12. Increase y by 1.
13. Jump up to the step above labeled vertical.
14. End: Coalesce all the duplicate entries in the data cells list, so
that each data cell is only present once, in tree order.
295
6. Assign the header cell to all the data cells in the data cells list that correspond to
td elements that do not have a headers attribute specified.
2. For each data cell in the table, in tree order (page 28), run these substeps:
1. If the data cell corresponds to a td element that does not have a headers
attribute specified, then skip these substeps and move on to the next data cell
(if any).
2. Otherwise, take the value of the headers attribute and split it on spaces (page
52), letting id list be the list of tokens obtained.
3. For each token in the id list, run the following steps:
1. Let id be the token.
2. If there is a header cell in the table (page 288) whose corresponding th

element has an ID that is equal to the value of id, then assign that
header cell to the data cell.
A header cell anchored at (headerx, headery) with width headerwidth and height headerheight is
said to be equivalent to a wide cell if all the slots with coordinates (slotx, sloty), where
headerx+headerwidth ≤ slotx < xwidth and headery ≤ sloty < headery+headerheight, are all either
empty or covered by empty data cells (page 296).
A data cell is said to be an empty data cell if it contains no elements and its text content, if
any, consists only of characters in the Unicode character class Zs. [UNICODE]
User agents may remove empty data cells (page 296) when analyzing data in a table (page
288).
4.9 Forms
This section will contain definitions of the form element and so forth.
This section will be a rewrite of the HTML4 Forms and Web Forms 2.0 specifications, with
hopefully no normative changes.
296
4.9.1 The form element
4.9.2 The fieldset element
4.9.3 The input element
4.9.4 The button element
4.9.5 The label element
4.9.6 The select element
4.9.7 The datalist element
4.9.8 The optgroup element
4.9.9 The option element
4.9.10 The textarea element
4.9.11 The output element
See WF2 for now
4.9.12.1. Form submission
See WF2 for now
If a form is in a browsing context whose sandboxed forms browsing context flag (page 199) is
set, it must not be submitted.
297
4.10 Scripting
Scripts allow authors to add interactivity to their documents.
Authors are encouraged to use declarative alternatives to scripting where possible, as

declarative mechanisms are often more maintainable, and many users disable scripting.
For example, instead of using script to show or hide a section to show more details, the
details element could be used.
Authors are also encouraged to make their applications degrade gracefully in the absence of
scripting support.
For example, if an author provides a link in a table header to dynamically resort the table,
the link could also be made to function without scripts by requesting the sorted table from
the server.
4.10.1 The script element
Categories

Content model:
If there is no src attribute, depends on the value of the type attribute.
If there is a src attribute, the element must be empty.
src
async
defer
type
charset
DOM interface:
interface HTMLScriptElement : HTMLElement {

attribute boolean async;
attribute boolean defer;
attribute DOMString charset;
attribute DOMString text;
};
298
The script element allows authors to include dynamic script and script data in their documents.
When used to include dynamic scripts, the scripts may either be embedded inline or may be
imported from an external file using the src attribute. If the language is not that described by
"text/javascript", then the type of the script's language must be given using the type
attribute.
When used to include script data, the script data must be embedded inline, the format of the
data must be given using the type attribute, and the src attribute must not be specified.
The type attribute gives the language of the script or format of the script data. If the attribute is
present, its value must be a valid MIME type, optionally with parameters. The charset
parameter must not be specified. (The default, which is used if the attribute is absent, is "text/
javascript".) [RFC2046]
The src attribute, if specified, gives the address of the external script resource to use. The value
of the attribute must be a valid URL (page 29) identifying a script resource of the type given by
the type attribute, if the attribute is present, or of the type "text/javascript", if the attribute
is absent.
The charset attribute gives the character encoding of the external script resource. The attribute
must not be specified if the src attribute is not present. If the attribute is set, its value must be a
valid character encoding name, and must be the preferred name for that encoding.
[IANACHARSET]
The encoding specified must be the encoding used by the script resource. If the charset
attribute is omitted, the character encoding of the document will be used. If the script resource
uses a different encoding than the document, then the attribute must be specified.
The async and defer attributes are boolean attributes (page 37) that indicate how the script
should be executed.
There are three possible modes that can be selected using these attributes. If the async
attribute is present, then the script will be executed asynchronously, as soon as it is available. If
the async attribute is not present but the defer attribute is present, then the script is executed
when the page has finished parsing. If neither attribute is present, then the script is downloaded
and executed immediately, before the user agent continues parsing the page. The exact
processing details for these attributes is described below.
The defer attribute may be specified even if the async attribute is specified, to cause legacy
Web browsers that only support defer (and not async) to fall back to the defer behavior instead
of the synchronous blocking behavior that is the default.
Changing the src, type, charset, async, and defer attributes dynamically has no direct effect;
these attribute are only used at specific times described below (namely, when the element is
inserted into the document).
script elements have four associated pieces of metadata. The first is a flag indicating whether
or not the script block has been "already executed". Initially, script elements must have this
flag unset (script blocks, when created, are not "already executed"). When a script element is
299
cloned, the "already executed" flag, if set, must be propagated to the clone when it is created.
The second is a flag indicating whether the element was "parser-inserted". This flag is set by
the HTML parser (page 518) and is used to handle document.write() calls. The third and fourth
pieces of metadata are the script's type and the script's character encoding. They are
determined when the script is run, based on the attributes on the element at that time.
Running a script: When a script block is inserted into a document, the user agent must act as
follows:
1. If the script element has a type attribute and its value is the empty string, or if the
script element has no type attribute but it has a language attribute and that
attribute's value is the empty string, or if the script element has neither a type
attribute nor a language attribute, let the script's type for this script element be
"text/javascript".
Otherwise, if the script element has a type attribute, let the script's type for this
script element be the value of that attribute.
Otherwise, the element has a language attribute; let the script's type for this script
element be the concatenation of the string "text/" followed by the value of the
language attribute.
2. If the script element has a charset attribute, then let the script's character encoding
for this script element be the encoding given by the charset attribute.
Otherwise, let the script's character encoding for this script element be the same as
the encoding of the document itself (page 75).
3. If the script element is without script (page 369), or if the script element was created
by an XML parser that itself was created as part of the processing of the innerHTML
attribute's setter, or if the user agent does not support the scripting language (page
303) given by the script's type for this script element, or if the script element has its
"already executed" (page 299) flag set, then the user agent must abort these steps at
this point. The script is not executed.
4. The user agent must set the element's "already executed" (page 299) flag.
5. If the element has a src attribute, then a load for the specified content must be started.
Note: Later, once the load has completed, the user agent will have to
complete the steps described below (page 301).
For performance reasons, user agents may start loading the script as soon as the
attribute is set, instead, in the hope that the element will be inserted into the document.
Either way, once the element is inserted into the document, the load must have started.
If the UA performs such prefetching, but the element is never inserted in the document,
or the src attribute is dynamically changed, then the user agent will not execute the
script, and the load will have been effectively wasted.
6. Then, the first of the following options that describes the situation must be followed:
300
↪ If the document is still being parsed, and the element has a defer
attribute, and the element does not have an async attribute
The element must be added to the end of the list of scripts that will execute
when the document has finished parsing (page 301). The user agent must begin
the next set of steps (page 301) when the script is ready. This isn't
compatible with IE for inline deferred scripts, but then what IE does is pretty
hard to pin down exactly. Do we want to keep this like it is? Be more
compatible?
↪ If the element has an async attribute and a src attribute

asynchronously (page 302). The user agent must jump to the next set of steps
(page 301) once the script is ready.
↪ If the element has an async attribute but no src attribute, and the list of
scripts that will execute asynchronously (page 302) is not empty
asynchronously (page 302).
↪ If the element has a src attribute and has been flagged as

"parser-inserted" (page 300)
The element is the pending external script (page 302). (There can only be one
such script at a time.)
↪ If the element has a src attribute

The element must be added to the end of the list of scripts that will execute as
soon as possible (page 302). The user agent must jump to the next set of steps
(page 301) when the script is ready.
↪ Otherwise
The user agent must immediately execute the script (page 302), even if other
scripts are already executing.
When a script completes loading: If a script whose element was added to one of the lists
mentioned above completes loading while the document is still being parsed, then the parser
handles it. Otherwise, when a script completes loading, the UA must run the following steps as
soon as as any other scripts that may be executing have finished executing:
↪ If the script's element was added to the list of scripts that will execute when the
document has finished parsing:
1. If the script's element is not the first element in the list, then do nothing yet.
Stop going through these steps.
2. Otherwise, execute the script (page 302) (that is, the script associated with the
first element in the list).
3. Remove the script's element from the list (i.e. shift out the first entry in the list).
301
4. If there are any more entries in the list, and if the script associated with the
element that is now the first in the list is already loaded, then jump back to step
two to execute it.
↪ If the script's element was added to the list of scripts that will execute
asynchronously:
1. If the script is not the first element in the list, then do nothing yet. Stop going
through these steps.
2. Execute the script (page 302) (the script associated with the first element in the
list).
3. Remove the script's element from the list (i.e. shift out the first entry in the list).
4. If there are any more scripts in the list, and the element now at the head of the
list had no src attribute when it was added to the list, or had one, but its
associated script has finished loading, then jump back to step two to execute
the script associated with this element.
↪ If the script's element was added to the list of scripts that will execute as soon as
possible:
1. Execute the script (page 302).
2. Remove the script's element from the list.
↪ If the script is the pending external script:

The script will be handled when the parser resumes (page 562).
The download of an external script must delay the load event (page 593).
Executing a script block: When the steps above require that the script be executed, the user
agent must act as follows:
↪ If the load resulted in an error (for example a DNS error, or an HTTP 404 error)
Executing the script must just consist of firing an error event (page 375) at the
element.
↪ If the load was successful
1. If the script element's Document is the active document (page 354) in its
browsing context (page 354), the user agent must execute the script:
↪ If the script is from an external file

That file must be used as the file to execute.
The file must be interpreted using the character encoding given by the
script's character encoding, regardless of any metadata given by the
file's Content-Type metadata (page 63).
302
This means that a UTF-16 document will always assume external
scripts are UTF-16...? This applies, e.g., to document's created using
createDocument()... It also means changing document.charSet will
affect the character encoding used to interpret scripts, is that really
what happens?
↪ If the script is inline

For scripting languages that consist of pure text, user agents must use
the value of the DOM text attribute (defined below) as the script to
execute, and for XML-based scripting languages, user agents must use
all the child nodes of the script element as the script to execute.
In any case, the user agent must execute the script according to the semantics
defined by the language associated with the script's type (see the scripting
languages (page 303) section below).
The script execution context (page 368) of the script must be the Window object
of that browsing context (page 354).
The script document context (page 369) of the script must be the Document
object that owns the script element.
Note: The element's attributes' values might have changed

between when the element was inserted into the document and
when the script has finished loading, as may its other
attributes; similarly, the element itself might have been taken
back out of the DOM, or had other changes made. These
changes do not in any way affect the above steps; only the
values of the attributes at the time the script element is first
inserted into the document matter.
2. Then, the user agent must fire a load event (page 375) at the script element.
The DOM attributes src, type, charset, async, and defer, each must reflect (page 55) the
respective content attributes of the same name.
The DOM attribute text must return a concatenation of the contents of all the text nodes (page
28) that are direct children of the script element (ignoring any other nodes such as comments
or elements), in tree order. On setting, it must act the same way as the textContent DOM
attribute.
4.10.1.1. Scripting languages
A user agent is said to support the scripting language if the script's type matches the MIME
type of a scripting language that the user agent implements.
The following lists some MIME types and the languages to which they refer:
303
text/javascript
ECMAScript. [ECMA262]
text/javascript;e4x=1
ECMAScript with ECMAScript for XML. [ECMA357]
User agents may support other MIME types and other languages.
When examining types to determine if they support the language, user agents must not ignore
unknown MIME parameters — types with unknown parameters must be assumed to be
unsupported.
4.10.2 The noscript element
Categories

In a head element of an HTML document (page 71), if there are no ancestor noscript
elements.
Where phrasing content (page 90) is expected in HTML documents (page 71), if there
are no ancestor noscript elements.
Content model:
Without script (page 369), in a head element: in any order, zero or more link elements,
zero or more style elements, and zero or more meta elements.
Without script (page 369), not in a head element: transparent (page 91), but there
must be no noscript element descendants.
With script (page 369): text that conforms to the requirements given in the
prose.
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The noscript element does not represent anything. It is used to present different markup to
user agents that support scripting and those that don't support scripting, by affecting how the
document is parsed.
The noscript element must not be used in XML documents (page 71).
Note: The noscript element is only effective in the HTML serialization, it has
no effect in the XML serialization.
When used in HTML documents (page 71), the allowed content model is as follows:
304
In a head element, if the noscript element is without script (page 369), then the content model
of a noscript element must contain only link, style, and meta elements. If the noscript
element is with script (page 369), then the content model of a noscript element is text, except
that invoking the HTML fragment parsing algorithm (page 596) with the noscript element as
the context element and the text contents as the input must result in a list of nodes that
consists only of link, style, and meta elements.
Outside of head elements, if the noscript element is without script (page 369), then the content
model of a noscript element is transparent (page 91), with the additional restriction that a
noscript element must not have a noscript element as an ancestor (that is, noscript can't be
nested).
Outside of head elements, if the noscript element is with script (page 369), then the content
model of a noscript element is text, except that the text must be such that running the
following algorithm results in a conforming document with no noscript elements and no script
elements, and such that no step in the algorithm causes an HTML parser (page 518) to flag a
parse error (page 518):
1. Remove every script element from the document.
2. Make a list of every noscript element in the document. For every noscript element in
that list, perform the following steps:
1. Let the parent element be the parent element of the noscript element.
2. Take all the children of the parent element that come before the noscript
element, and call these elements the before children.
3. Take all the children of the parent element that come after the noscript
element, and call these elements the after children.
4. Let s be the concatenation of all the text node (page 28) children of the
noscript element.
5. Set the innerHTML attribute of the parent element to the value of s. (This, as a
side-effect, causes the noscript element to be removed from the document.)
6. Insert the before children at the start of the parent element, preserving their
original relative order.
7. Insert the after children at the end of the parent element, preserving their
original relative order.
The noscript element has no other requirements. In particular, children of the noscript
element are not exempt from form submission, scripting, and so forth, even when the element is
with script (page 369).
Note: All these contortions are required because, for historical reasons, the
noscript element is handled differently by the HTML parser (page 518) based
on whether scripting was enabled or not (page 534) when the parser was
invoked. The element is not allowed in XML, because in XML the parser is not
affected by such state, and thus the element would not have the desired
effect.
305
Note: The noscript element interacts poorly with the designMode feature.
Authors are encouraged to not use noscript elements on pages that will have
designMode enabled.
4.10.3 The event-source element
Categories

Content model:
Empty.
src
DOM interface:
interface HTMLEventSourceElement : HTMLElement {

};
The event-source element represents a target for events generated by a remote server.
The src attribute, if specified, must give a valid URL (page 29) identifying a resource that uses
the text/event-stream format.
When an event-source element with a src attribute specified is inserted into the document,
and when an event-source element that is already in the document has a src attribute added,
the user agent must run the add declared event source (page 306) algorithm.
While an event-source element is in a document, if its src attribute is mutated, the user agent
must must run the remove declared event source (page 307) algorithm followed by the add
declared event source (page 306) algorithm.
When an event-source element with a src attribute specified is removed from a document, and
when an event-source element that is in a document with a src attribute specified has its src
attribute removed, the user agent must run the remove declared event source (page 307)
algorithm.
When it is created, an event-source element must have its current declared event source set to
"undefined".
The add declared event source algorithm is as follows:
306
1. Resolve (page 31) the URL (page 29) specified by the event-source element's src
attribute.
2. If that fails, then set the element's current declared event source to "undefined" and
abort these steps.
3. Otherwise, act as if the addEventSource() method on the event-source element had

been invoked with the resulting absolute URL (page 33).
4. Let the element's current declared event source be that absolute URL (page 33).
The remove declared event source algorithm is as follows:
1. If the element's current declared event source is "undefined", abort these steps.
2. Otherwise, act as if the removeEventSource() method on the event-source element

had been invoked with the element's current declared event source.
3. Let the element's current declared event source be "undefined".
There can be more than one event-source element per document, but authors should take care
to avoid opening multiple connections to the same server as HTTP recommends a limit to the
number of simultaneous connections that a user agent can open per server.
The src DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the content attribute of the same name.
4.11 Interactive elements
4.11.1 The details element
Categories

Content model:
One legend element followed by flow content (page 89).
open
DOM interface:
interface HTMLDetailsElement : HTMLElement {

attribute boolean open;
};
The details element represents additional information or controls which the user can obtain on
demand.
307
The first element child of a details element, if it is a legend element, represents the summary
of the details.
If the first element is not a legend element, the UA should provide its own legend (e.g.
"Details").
The open content attribute is a boolean attribute (page 37). If present, it indicates that the
details should be shown to the user. If the attribute is absent, the details should not be shown.
If the attribute is removed, then the details should be hidden. If the attribute is added, the
details should be shown.
The user should be able to request that the details be shown or hidden.
The open attribute must reflect (page 55) the open content attribute.
Rendering will be described in the Rendering section in due course. Basically CSS :open and
:closed match the element, it's a block-level element by default, and when it matches :closed
it renders as if it had an XBL binding attached to it whose template was just
<template>▶<content includes="legend:first-child">Details</content></template>,
and when it's :open it acts as if it had an XBL binding attached to it whose template was just
<template>▼<content
includes="legend:first-child">Details</content><content/></template> or some
such.
Clicking the legend would make it open/close (and would change the content attribute).
Question: Do we want the content attribute to reflect the actual state like this? I think we do,
the DOM not reflecting state has been a pain in the neck before. But is it semantically ok?
4.11.2 The datagrid element
Categories
Interactive element.

Content model:
Either: Nothing.
Or: Flow content (page 89), but where the first element child node, if any, is not a
table, select, or datalist element.
Or: A single table element.
Or: A single select element.
Or: A single datalist element.
308
multiple
disabled
DOM interface:
interface HTMLDataGridElement : HTMLElement {

attribute DataGridDataProvider data;
readonly attribute DataGridSelection selection;
attribute boolean multiple;
void updateEverything();
void updateRowsChanged(in RowSpecification row, in unsigned long
count);
void updateRowsInserted(in RowSpecification row, in unsigned long
count);
void updateRowsRemoved(in RowSpecification row, in unsigned long
count);
void updateRowChanged(in RowSpecification row);
void updateColumnChanged(in unsigned long column);
void updateCellChanged(in RowSpecification row, in unsigned long
column);
};
One possible thing to be added is a way to detect when a row/selection has been deleted,
activated, etc, by the user (delete key, enter key, etc).
This element is defined as interactive, which means it can't contain other interactive
elements, despite the fact that we expect it to work with other interactive elements e.g.
checkboxes and input fields. It should be called something like a Leaf Interactive Element or
something, which counts for ancestors looking in and not descendants looking out.
The datagrid element represents an interactive representation of tree, list, or tabular data.
The data being presented can come either from the content, as elements given as children of
the datagrid element, or from a scripted data provider given by the data DOM attribute.
The multiple and disabled attributes are boolean attributes (page 37). Their effects are
described in the processing model sections below.
The multiple and disabled DOM attributes must reflect (page 55) the multiple and disabled
content attributes respectively.
309
4.11.2.1. The datagrid data model
In the datagrid data model, data is structured as a set of rows representing a tree, each row
being split into a number of columns. The columns are always present in the data model,
although individual columns may be hidden in the presentation.
Each row can have child rows. Child rows may be hidden or shown, by closing or opening
(respectively) the parent row.
Rows are referred to by the path along the tree that one would take to reach the row, using
zero-based indices. Thus, the first row of a list is row "0", the second row is row "1"; the first
child row of the first row is row "0,0", the second child row of the first row is row "0,1"; the fourth
child of the seventh child of the third child of the tenth row is "9,2,6,3", etc.
The columns can have captions. Those captions are not considered a row in their own right, they
are obtained separately.
Selection of data in a datagrid operates at the row level. If the multiple attribute is present,
multiple rows can be selected at once, otherwise the user can only select one row at a time.
The datagrid element can be disabled entirely by setting the disabled attribute.
Columns, rows, and cells can each have specific flags, known as classes, applied to them by the
data provider. These classes affect the functionality (page 314) of the datagrid element, and
are also passed to the style system (page 608). They are similar in concept to the class
attribute, except that they are not specified on elements but are given by scripted data
providers.
4.11.2.2. How rows are identified
The chains of numbers that give a row's path, or identifier, are represented by objects that
implement the RowSpecification (page 310) interface.
[NoInterfaceObject] interface RowSpecification {

// binding-specific interface
};
In ECMAScript, two classes of objects are said to implement this interface: Numbers representing
non-negative integers, and homogeneous arrays of Numbers representing non-negative
integers. Thus, [1,0,9] is a RowSpecification (page 310), as is 1 on its own. However,
[1,0.2,9] is not a RowSpecification (page 310) object, since its second value is not an integer.
User agents must always represent RowSpecifications in ECMAScript by using arrays, even if
the path only has one number.
310
The root of the tree is represented by the empty path; in ECMAScript, this is the empty array
([]). Only the getRowCount() and GetChildAtPosition() methods ever get called with the
empty path.
4.11.2.3. The data provider interface
The conformance criteria in this section apply to any implementation of the

DataGridDataProvider, including (and most commonly) the content author's
implementation(s).
// To be implemented by Web authors as a JS object

[NoInterfaceObject] interface DataGridDataProvider {
void initialize(in HTMLDataGridElement datagrid);
unsigned long getRowCount(in RowSpecification row);
unsigned long getChildAtPosition(in RowSpecification parentRow, in
unsigned long position);
unsigned long getColumnCount();
DOMString getCaptionText(in unsigned long column);
void getCaptionClasses(in unsigned long column, in DOMTokenList classes);
DOMString getRowImage(in RowSpecification row);
HTMLMenuElement getRowMenu(in RowSpecification row);
void getRowClasses(in RowSpecification row, in DOMTokenList classes);
DOMString getCellData(in RowSpecification row, in unsigned long column);
void getCellClasses(in RowSpecification row, in unsigned long column, in
DOMTokenList classes);
void toggleColumnSortState(in unsigned long column);
void setCellCheckedState(in RowSpecification row, in unsigned long
column, in long state);
void cycleCell(in RowSpecification row, in unsigned long column);
void editCell(in RowSpecification row, in unsigned long column, in
DOMString data);
};
The DataGridDataProvider interface represents the interface that objects must implement to
be used as custom data views for datagrid elements.
Not all the methods are required. The minimum number of methods that must be implemented
in a useful view is two: the getRowCount() and getCellData() methods.
Once the object is written, it must be hooked up to the datagrid using the data DOM attribute.
The following methods may be usefully implemented:
initialize(datagrid)
Called by the datagrid element (the one given by the datagrid argument) after it has first
populated itself. This would typically be used to set the initial selection of the datagrid
element when it is first loaded. The data provider could also use this method call to register
a select event handler on the datagrid in order to monitor selection changes.
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getRowCount(row)
Must return the number of rows that are children of the specified row, including rows that
are off-screen. If row is empty, then the number of rows at the top level must be returned. If
the value that this method would return for a given row changes, the relevant update
methods on the datagrid must be called first. Otherwise, this method must always return
the same number. For a list (as opposed to a tree), this method must return 0 whenever it is
called with a row identifier that is not empty.
getChildAtPosition(parentRow, position)
Must return the index of the row that is a child of parentRow and that is to be positioned as
the positionth row under parentRow when rendering the children of parentRow. If
parentRow is empty, then position refers to the positionth row at the top level of the data
grid. May be omitted if the rows are always to be sorted in the natural order. (The natural
order is the one where the method always returns position.) For a given parentRow, this
method must never return the same value for different values of position. The returned
value x must be in the range 0 ≤ x < n, where n is the value returned by
getRowCount(parentRow).
getColumnCount()
Must return the number of columns currently in the data model (including columns that
might be hidden). May be omitted if there is only one column. If the value that this method
would return changes, the datagrid's updateEverything() method must be called.
getCaptionText(column)
Must return the caption, or label, for column column. May be omitted if the columns have no
captions. If the value that this method would return changes, the datagrid's
updateColumnChanged() method must be called with the appropriate column index.
getCaptionClasses(column, classes)
Must add the classes that apply to column column to the classes object. May be omitted if
the columns have no special classes. If the classes that this method would add changes, the
datagrid's updateColumnChanged() method must be called with the appropriate column
index. Some classes have predefined meanings (page 314).
getRowImage(row)
Must return a URL (page 29) giving the address of an image that represents row row, or the
empty string if there is no applicable image. May be omitted if no rows have associated
images. If the value that this method would return changes, the datagrid's update methods
must be called to update the row in question.
getRowMenu(row)
Must return an HTMLMenuElement object that is to be used as a context menu for row row, or
null if there is no particular context menu. May be omitted if none of the rows have a special
context menu. As this method is called immediately before showing the menu in question,
no precautions need to be taken if the return value of this method changes.
getRowClasses(row, classes)
Must add the classes that apply to row row to the classes object. May be omitted if the rows
have no special classes. If the classes that this method would add changes, the datagrid's
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update methods must be called to update the row in question. Some classes have
predefined meanings (page 314).
getCellData(row, column)
Must return the value of the cell on row row in column column. For text cells, this must be
the text to show for that cell. For progress bar cells (page 314), this must be either a
floating point number in the range 0.0 to 1.0 (converted to a string representation),
indicating the fraction of the progress bar to show as full (1.0 meaning complete), or the
empty string, indicating an indeterminate progress bar. If the value that this method would
return changes, the datagrid's update methods must be called to update the rows that
changed. If only one cell changed, the updateCellChanged() method may be used.
getCellClasses(row, column, classes)

Must add the classes that apply to the cell on row row in column column to the classes
object. May be omitted if the cells have no special classes. If the classes that this method
would add changes, the datagrid's update methods must be called to update the rows or
cells in question. Some classes have predefined meanings (page 314).
toggleColumnSortState(column)
Called by the datagrid when the user tries to sort the data using a particular column
column. The data provider must update its state so that the GetChildAtPosition() method
returns the new order, and the classes of the columns returned by getCaptionClasses()
represent the new sort status. There is no need to tell the datagrid that it the data has
changed, as the datagrid automatically assumes that the entire data model will need
updating.
setCellCheckedState(row, column, state)

Called by the datagrid when the user changes the state of a checkbox cell on row row,
column column. The checkbox should be toggled to the state given by state, which is a
positive integer (1) if the checkbox is to be checked, zero (0) if it is to be unchecked, and a
negative number (−1) if it is to be set to the indeterminate state. There is no need to tell
the datagrid that the cell has changed, as the datagrid automatically assumes that the
given cell will need updating.
cycleCell(row, column)
Called by the datagrid when the user changes the state of a cyclable cell on row row,
column column. The data provider should change the state of the cell to the new state, as
appropriate. There is no need to tell the datagrid that the cell has changed, as the
datagrid automatically assumes that the given cell will need updating.
editCell(row, column, data)

Called by the datagrid when the user edits the cell on row row, column column. The new
value of the cell is given by data. The data provider should update the cell accordingly.
There is no need to tell the datagrid that the cell has changed, as the datagrid
automatically assumes that the given cell will need updating.
The following classes (for rows, columns, and cells) may be usefully used in conjunction with this
interface:
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Class name Applies Description
to
checked Cells The cell has a checkbox and it is checked. (The cyclable and progress classes
override this, though.)
cyclable Cells The cell can be cycled through multiple values. (The progress class overrides
this, though.)
editable Cells The cell can be edited. (The cyclable, progress, checked, unchecked and
indeterminate classes override this, though.)
header Rows The row is a heading, not a data row.
indeterminate Cells The cell has a checkbox, and it can be set to an indeterminate state. If neither
the checked nor unchecked classes are present, then the checkbox is in that
state, too. (The cyclable and progress classes override this, though.)
initially-hidden Columns The column will not be shown when the datagrid is initially rendered. If this
class is not present on the column when the datagrid is initially rendered, the
column will be visible if space allows.
initially-closed Rows The row will be closed when the datagrid is initially rendered. If neither this
class nor the initially-open class is present on the row when the datagrid is
initially rendered, the initial state will depend on platform conventions.
initially-open Rows The row will be opened when the datagrid is initially rendered. If neither this
class nor the initially-closed class is present on the row when the datagrid
is initially rendered, the initial state will depend on platform conventions.
progress Cells The cell is a progress bar.
reversed Columns If the cell is sorted, the sort direction is descending, instead of ascending.
selectable-separator Rows The row is a normal, selectable, data row, except that instead of having data, it
only has a separator. (The header and separator classes override this, though.)
separator Rows The row is a separator row, not a data row. (The header class overrides this,
though.)
sortable Columns The data can be sorted by this column.
sorted Columns The data is sorted by this column. Unless the reversed class is also present, the
sort direction is ascending.
unchecked Cells The cell has a checkbox and, unless the checked class is present as well, it is
unchecked. (The cyclable and progress classes override this, though.)
4.11.2.4. The default data provider
The user agent must supply a default data provider for the case where the datagrid's data
attribute is null. It must act as described in this section.
The behavior of the default data provider depends on the nature of the first element child of the
datagrid.
↪ While the first element child is a table element

getRowCount(row): The number of rows returned by the default data provider for the
root of the tree (when row is empty) must be the total number of tr elements that are
children of tbody elements that are children of the table, if there are any such child
tbody elements. If there are no such tbody elements then the number of rows returned
for the root must be the number of tr elements that are children of the table.
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When row is not empty, the number of rows returned must be zero.
Note: The table-based default data provider cannot represent a tree.
Note: Rows in thead elements do not contribute to the number of rows

returned, although they do affect the columns and column captions.
Rows in tfoot elements are ignored (page 28) completely by this
algorithm.
getChildAtPosition(row, i): The default data provider must return the mapping
appropriate to the current sort order (page 316).
getColumnCount(): The number of columns returned must be the number of td

element children in the first tr element child of the first tbody element child of the
table, if there are any such tbody elements. If there are no such tbody elements, then
it must be the number of td element children in the first tr element child of the table,
if any, or otherwise 1. If the number that would be returned by these rules is 0, then 1
must be returned instead.
getCaptionText(i): If the table has no thead element child, or if its first thead
element child has no tr element child, the default data provider must return the empty
string for all captions. Otherwise, the value of the textContent attribute of the ith th
element child of the first tr element child of the first thead element child of the table
element must be returned. If there is no such th element, the empty string must be
returned.
getCaptionClasses(i, classes): If the table has no thead element child, or if its first
thead element child has no tr element child, the default data provider must not add
any classes for any of the captions. Otherwise, each class in the class attribute of the
ith th element child of the first tr element child of the first thead element child of the
table element must be added to the classes. If there is no such th element, no classes
must be added. The user agent must then:
1. Remove the sorted and reversed classes.
2. If the table element has a class attribute that includes the sortable class,
add the sortable class.
3. If the column is the one currently being used to sort the data, add the sorted
class.
4. If the column is the one currently being used to sort the data, and it is sorted in
descending order, add the reversed class as well.
The various row- and cell- related methods operate relative to a particular element, the
element of the row or cell specified by their arguments.
For rows: Since the default data provider for a table always returns 0 as the number
of children for any row other than the root, the path to the row passed to these methods
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will always consist of a single number. In the prose below, this number is referred to as
i.
If the table has tbody element children, the element for the ith row is the ith tr
element that is a child of a tbody element that is a child of the table element. If the
table does not have tbody element children, then the element for the ith real row is the
ith tr element that is a child of the table element.
For cells: Given a row and its element, the row's ith cell's element is the ith td element
child of the row element.
Note: The colspan and rowspan attributes are ignored (page 28) by this
algorithm.
getRowImage(i): The URL (page 29) of the row's image is the absolute URL (page 33)
obtained by resolving (page 31) the value of the src attribute of the first img element
child of the row's first cell's element, if there is one and resolving its attribute is
successful. Otherwise, the URL (page 29) of the row's image is the empty string.
getRowMenu(i): If the row's first cell's element has a menu element child, then the row's
menu is the first menu element child of the row's first cell's element. Otherwise, the row
has no menu.
getRowClasses(i, classes): The default data provider must never add a class to the
row's classes.
toggleColumnSortState(i): If the data is already being sorted on the given column,

then the user agent must change the current sort mapping to be the inverse of the
current sort mapping; if the sort order was ascending before, it is now descending,
otherwise it is now ascending. Otherwise, if the current sort column is another column,
or the data model is currently not sorted, the user agent must create a new mapping,
which maps rows in the data model to rows in the DOM so that the rows in the data
model are sorted by the specified column, in ascending order. (Which sort comparison
operator to use is left up to the UA to decide.)
When the sort mapping is changed, the values returned by the getChildAtPosition()
method for the default data provider will change appropriately (page 315).
getCellData(i, j), getCellClasses(i, j, classes), getCellCheckedState(i, j,

state), cycleCell(i, j), and editCell(i, j, data): See the common definitions
below (page 320).
The data provider must call the datagrid's update methods appropriately whenever the
descendants of the datagrid mutate. For example, if a tr is removed, then the
updateRowsRemoved() methods would probably need to be invoked, and any change to
a cell or its descendants must cause the cell to be updated. If the table element stops
being the first child of the datagrid, then the data provider must call the
updateEverything() method on the datagrid. Any change to a cell that is in the
column that the data provider is currently using as its sort column must also cause the
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sort to be reperformed, with a call to updateEverything() if the change did affect the
sort order.
↪ While the first element child is a select or datalist element

The default data provider must return 1 for the column count, the empty string for the
column's caption, and must not add any classes to the column's classes.
For the rows, assume the existence of a node filter view of the descendants of the first
element child of the datagrid element (the select or datalist element), that skips all
nodes other than optgroup and option elements, as well as any descendents of any
option elements.
Given a path row, the corresponding element is the one obtained by drilling into the
view, taking the child given by the path each time.
Given the following XML markup:
<datagrid>
<select>

<optgroup>
<option/>
<option/>
</optgroup>
<optgroup>
<option/>
<optgroup id="a">
<option/>
<option/>
<bogus/>
<option id="b"/>
</optgroup>
<option/>
</optgroup>
</select>
</datagrid>
The path "1,1,2" would select the element with ID "b". In the filtered view, the text
nodes, comment nodes, and bogus elements are ignored; so for instance, the
element with ID "a" (path "1,1") has only 3 child nodes in the view.
getRowCount(row) must drill through the view to find the element corresponding to the
method's argument, and return the number of child nodes in the filtered view that the
corresponding element has. (If the row is empty, the corresponding element is the
select element at the root of the filtered view.)
getChildAtPosition(row, position) must return position. (The select/datalist

default data provider does not support sorting the data grid.)
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getRowImage(i) must return the empty string, getRowMenu(i) must return null.
getRowClasses(row, classes) must add the classes from the following list to classes
when their condition is met:
• If the row's corresponding element is an optgroup element: header
• If the row's corresponding element contains other elements that are also in the
view, and the element's class attribute contains the closed class:
initially-closed
• If the row's corresponding element contains other elements that are also in the
view, and the element's class attribute contains the open class:
initially-open
The getCellData(row, cell) method must return the value of the label attribute if
the row's corresponding element is an optgroup element, otherwise, if the row's
corresponding element is an optionelement, its label attribute if it has one, otherwise
the value of its textContent DOM attribute.
The getCellClasses(row, cell, classes) method must add no classes.
autoselect some rows when initialized, reflect the selection in the select, reflect the
multiple attribute somehow.
descendants of the datagrid mutate.
↪ While the first element child is another element

The default data provider must return 1 for the column count, the empty string for the
column's caption, and must not add any classes to the column's classes.
For the rows, assume the existence of a node filter view of the descendants of the
datagrid that skips all nodes other than li, h1–h6, and hr elements, and skips any
descendants of menu elements.
Given this view, each element in the view represents a row in the data model. The
element corresponding to a path row is the one obtained by drilling into the view, taking
the child given by the path each time. The element of the row of a particular method
call is the element given by drilling into the view along the path given by the method's
arguments.
getRowCount(row) must return the number of child elements in this view for the given
row, or the number of elements at the root of the view if the row is empty.
In the following example, the elements are identified by the paths given by their
child text nodes:
<datagrid>
<ol>
<li> row 0 </li>
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<li> row 1
<ol>
<li> row 1,0 </li>
</ol>
</li>
<li> row 2 </li>
</ol>
</datagrid>
In this example, only the li elements actually appear in the data grid; the ol
element does not affect the data grid's processing model.
getChildAtPosition(row, position) must return position. (The generic default data

provider does not support sorting the data grid.)
getRowImage(i) must return the absolute URL (page 33) obtained from resolving (page
31) the value of the src attribute of the first img element descendant (in the real DOM)
of the row's element, that is not also a descendant of another element in the filtered
view that is a descendant of the row's element, if such an element exists and resolving
its attribute is successful. Otherwise, it must return the empty string.
In the following example, the row with path "1,0" returns "http://example.com/a" as
its image URL, and the other rows (including the row with path "1") return the
empty string:
<datagrid>
<ol>
<li> row 0 </li>
<li> row 1
<ol>
<li> row 1,0 <img src="http://example.com/a" alt=""> </li>
</ol>
</li>
<li> row 2 </li>
</ol>
</datagrid>
getRowMenu(i) must return the first menu element descendant (in the real DOM) of the
row's element, that is not also a descendant of another element in the filtered view that
is a descendant of the row's element. (This is analogous to the image case above.)
getRowClasses(i, classes) must add the classes from the following list to classes
when their condition is met:
• If the row's element contains other elements that are also in the view, and the
element's class attribute contains the closed class: initially-closed
• If the row's element contains other elements that are also in the view, and the
element's class attribute contains the open class: initially-open
• If the row's element is an h1–h6 element: header
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• If the row's element is an hr element: separator
The getCellData(i, j), getCellClasses(i, j, classes), getCellCheckedState(i,

j, state), cycleCell(i, j), and editCell(i, j, data) methods must act as
described in the common definitions below (page 320), treating the row's element as
being the cell's element.
selection handling?
descendants of the datagrid mutate.
↪ Otherwise, while there is no element child

The data provider must return 0 for the number of rows, 1 for the number of columns,
the empty string for the first column's caption, and must add no classes when asked for
that column's classes. If the datagrid's child list changes such that there is a first
element child, then the data provider must call the updateEverything() method on the
datagrid.
4.11.2.4.1. Common default data provider method definitions for cells
These definitions are used for the cell-specific methods of the default data providers (other than
in the select/datalist case). How they behave is based on the contents of an element that
represents the cell given by their first two arguments. Which element that is is defined in the
previous section.
Cyclable cells
If the first element child of a cell's element is a select element that has a no multiple
attribute and has at least one option element descendent, then the cell acts as a cyclable
cell.
The "current" option element is the selected option element, or the first option element if
none is selected.
The getCellData() method must return the textContent of the current option element
(the label attribute is ignored (page 28) in this context as the optgroups are not
displayed).
The getCellClasses() method must add the cyclable class and then all the classes of the
current option element.
The cycleCell() method must change the selection of the select element such that the
next option element after the current option element is the only one that is selected (in
tree order (page 28)). If the current option element is the last option element descendent
of the select, then the first option element descendent must be selected instead.
The setCellCheckedState() and editCell() methods must do nothing.
320
Progress bar cells
If the first element child of a cell's element is a progress element, then the cell acts as a
progress bar cell.
The getCellData() method must return the value returned by the progress element's
position DOM attribute.
The getCellClasses() method must add the progress class.
The setCellCheckedState(), cycleCell(), and editCell() methods must do nothing.
Checkbox cells
If the first element child of a cell's element is an input element that has a type attribute
with the value checkbox, then the cell acts as a check box cell.
The getCellData() method must return the textContent of the cell element.
The getCellClasses() method must add the checked class if the input element is
checked, and the unchecked class otherwise.
The setCellCheckedState() method must set the input element's checkbox state to
checked if the method's third argument is 1, and to unchecked otherwise.
The cycleCell() and editCell() methods must do nothing.
Editable cells
If the first element child of a cell's element is an input element that has a type attribute
with the value text or that has no type attribute at all, then the cell acts as an editable cell.
The getCellData() method must return the value of the input element.
The getCellClasses() method must add the editable class.
The editCell() method must set the input element's value DOM attribute to the value of
the third argument to the method.
The setCellCheckedState() and cycleCell() methods must do nothing.
4.11.2.5. Populating the datagrid element
A datagrid must be disabled until its end tag has been parsed (in the case of a datagrid
element in the original document markup) or until it has been inserted into the document (in the
case of a dynamically created element). After that point, the element must fire a single load
event at itself, which doesn't bubble and cannot be canceled.
The end-tag parsing thing should be moved to the parsing section.
The datagrid must then populate itself using the data provided by the data provider assigned to
the data DOM attribute. After the view is populated (using the methods described below), the
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datagrid must invoke the initialize() method on the data provider specified by the data
attribute, passing itself (the HTMLDataGridElement object) as the only argument.
When the data attribute is null, the datagrid must use the default data provider described in
the previous section.
To obtain data from the data provider, the element must invoke methods on the data provider
object in the following ways:
To determine the total number of columns

Invoke the getColumnCount() method with no arguments. The return value is the number
of columns. If the return value is zero or negative, not an integer, or simply not a numeric
type, or if the method is not defined, then 1 must be used instead.
To get the captions to use for the columns

Invoke the getCaptionText() method with the index of the column in question. The index i
must be in the range 0 ≤ i < N, where N is the total number of columns. The return value is
the string to use when referring to that column. If the method returns null or the empty
string, the column has no caption. If the method is not defined, then none of the columns
have any captions.
To establish what classes apply to a column

Invoke the getCaptionClasses() method with the index of the column in question, and an
object implementing the DOMTokenList interface, associated with an anonymous empty
string. The index i must be in the range 0 ≤ i < N, where N is the total number of columns.
The tokens contained in the string underlying DOMTokenList object when the method
returns represent the classes that apply to the given column. If the method is not defined,
no classes apply to the column.
To establish whether a column should be initially included in the visible columns

Check whether the initially-hidden class applies to the column. If it does, then the
column should not be initially included; if it does not, then the column should be initially
included.
To establish whether the data can be sorted relative to a particular column

Check whether the sortable class applies to the column. If it does, then the user should be
able to ask the UA to display the data sorted by that column; if it does not, then the user
agent must not allow the user to ask for the data to be sorted by that column.
To establish if a column is a sorted column

If the user agent can handle multiple columns being marked as sorted simultaneously:
Check whether the sorted class applies to the column. If it does, then that column is the
sorted column, otherwise it is not.
If the user agent can only handle one column being marked as sorted at a time: Check
each column in turn, starting with the first one, to see whether the sorted class applies
to that column. The first column that has that class, if any, is the sorted column. If none
of the columns have that class, there is no sorted column.
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To establish the sort direction of a sorted column
Check whether the reversed class applies to the column. If it does, then the sort direction is
descending (down; first rows have the highest values), otherwise it is ascending (up; first
rows have the lowest values).
To determine the total number of rows

Determine the number of rows for the root of the data grid, and determine the number of
child rows for each open row. The total number of rows is the sum of all these numbers.
To determine the number of rows for the root of the data grid
Invoke the getRowCount() method with a RowSpecification object representing the empty
path as its only argument. The return value is the number of rows at the top level of the
data grid. If the return value of the method is negative, not an integer, or simply not a
numeric type, or if the method is not defined, then zero must be used instead.
To determine the number of child rows for a row

Invoke the getRowCount() method with a RowSpecification object representing the path
to the row in question. The return value is the number of child rows for the given row. If the
return value of the method is negative, not an integer, or simply not a numeric type, or if
the method is not defined, then zero must be used instead.
To determine what order to render rows in

Invoke the getChildAtPosition() method with a RowSpecification object representing
the path to the parent of the rows that are being rendered as the first argument, and the
position that is being rendered as the second argument. The return value is the index of the
row to render in that position.
If the rows are:
1. Row "0"
1. Row "0,0"
2. Row "0,1"
2. Row "1"
1. Row "1,0"
2. Row "1,1"
...and the getChildAtPosition() method is implemented as follows:
function getChildAtPosition(parent, child) {

// always return the reverse order
return getRowCount(parent)-child-1;
}
...then the rendering would actually be:
1. Row "1"
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1. Row "1,1"
2. Row "1,0"
2. Row "0"
1. Row "0,1"
2. Row "0,0"
If the return value of the method is negative, larger than the number of rows that the
getRowCount() method reported for that parent, not an integer, or simply not a numeric
type, then the entire data grid should be disabled. Similarly, if the method returns the same
value for two or more different values for the second argument (with the same first
argument, and assuming that the data grid hasn't had relevant update methods invoked in
the meantime), then the data grid should be disabled. Instead of disabling the data grid, the
user agent may act as if the getChildAtPosition() method was not defined on the data
provider (thus disabling sorting for that data grid, but still letting the user interact with the
data). If the method is not defined, then the return value must be assumed to be the same
as the second argument (an identity transform; the data is rendered in its natural order).
To establish what classes apply to a row

Invoke the getRowClasses() method with a RowSpecification object representing the row
in question, and a DOMTokenList associated with an empty string. The tokens contained in
the DOMTokenList object's underlying string when the method returns represent the classes
that apply to the row in question. If the method is not defined, no classes apply to the row.
To establish whether a row is a data row or a special row

Examine the classes that apply to the row. If the header class applies to the row, then it is
not a data row, it is a subheading. The data from the first cell of the row is the text of the
subheading, the rest of the cells must be ignored. Otherwise, if the separator class applies
to the row, then in the place of the row, a separator should be shown. Otherwise, if the
selectable-separator class applies to the row, then the row should be a data row, but
represented as a separator. (The difference between a separator and a
selectable-separator is that the former is not an item that can be actually selected,
whereas the second can be selected and thus has a context menu that applies to it, and so
forth.) For both kinds of separator rows, the data of the rows' cells must all be ignored. If
none of those three classes apply then the row is a simple data row.
To establish whether a row is openable

Determine the number of child rows for that row. If there are one or more child rows, then
the row is openable.
To establish whether a row should be initially open or closed

If the row is openable (page 324), examine the classes that apply to the row. If the
initially-open class applies to the row, then it should be initially open. Otherwise, if the
initially-closed class applies to the row, then it must be initially closed. Otherwise, if
neither class applies to the row, or if the row is not openable, then the initial state of the
row should be based on platform conventions.
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To obtain a URL (page 29) identifying an image representing a row
Invoke the getRowImage() method with a RowSpecification object representing the row in
question. The return value is a URL (page 29). Immediately resolve (page 31) that URL as if
it came from an attribute of the datagrid element to obtain an absolute URL (page 33)
identifying the image that represents the row. If the method returns the empty string, null,
or if the method is not defined, then the row has no associated image.
To obtain a context menu appropriate for a particular row

Invoke the getRowMenu() method with a RowSpecification object representing the row in
question. The return value is a reference to an object implementing the HTMLMenuElement
interface, i.e. a menu element DOM node. (This element must then be interpreted as
described in the section on context menus to obtain the actual context menu to use.) If the
method returns something that is not an HTMLMenuElement, or if the method is not defined,
then the row has no associated context menu. User agents may provide their own default
context menu, and may add items to the author-provided context menu. For example, such
a menu could allow the user to change the presentation of the datagrid element.
To establish the value of a particular cell

Invoke the getCellData() method with the first argument being a RowSpecification
object representing the row of the cell in question and the second argument being the index
of the cell's column. The second argument must be a non-negative integer less than the
total number of columns. The return value is the value of the cell. If the return value is null
or the empty string, or if the method is not defined, then the cell has no data. (For progress
bar cells, the cell's value must be further interpreted, as described below.)
To establish what classes apply to a cell

Invoke the getCellClasses() method with the first argument being a RowSpecification
object representing the row of the cell in question, the second argument being the index of
the cell's column, and the third being an object implementing the DOMTokenList interface,
associated with an empty string. The second argument must be a non-negative integer less
than the total number of columns. The tokens contained in the DOMTokenList object's
underlying string when the method returns represent the classes that apply to that cell. If
the method is not defined, no classes apply to the cell.
To establish how the type of a cell

Examine the classes that apply to the cell. If the progress class applies to the cell, it is a
progress bar. Otherwise, if the cyclable class applies to the cell, it is a cycling cell whose
value can be cycled between multiple states. Otherwise, none of these classes apply, and
the cell is a simple text cell.
To establish the value of a progress bar cell

If the value x of the cell is a string that can be converted to a floating-point number (page
39) in the range 0.0 ≤ x ≤ 1.0, then the progress bar has that value (0.0 means no
progress, 1.0 means complete). Otherwise, the progress bar is an indeterminate progress
bar.
To establish how a simple text cell should be presented

Check whether one of the checked, unchecked, or indeterminate classes applies to the
cell. If any of these are present, then the cell has a checkbox, otherwise none are present
and the cell does not have a checkbox. If the cell has no checkbox, check whether the
325
editable class applies to the cell. If it does, then the cell value is editable, otherwise the
cell value is static.
To establish the state of a cell's checkbox, if it has one

Check whether the checked class applies to the cell. If it does, the cell is checked.
Otherwise, check whether the unchecked class applies to the cell. If it does, the cell is
unchecked. Otherwise, the indeterminate class applies to the cell and the cell's checkbox
is in an indeterminate state. When the indeterminate class applies to the cell, the
checkbox is a tristate checkbox, and the user can set it to the indeterminate state.
Otherwise, only the checked and/or unchecked classes apply to the cell, and the cell can
only be toggled between those two states.
If the data provider ever raises an exception while the datagrid is invoking one of its methods,
the datagrid must act, for the purposes of that particular method call, as if the relevant method
had not been defined.
A RowSpecification object p with n path components passed to a method of the data provider
must fulfill the constraint 0 ≤ pi < m-1 for all integer values of i in the range 0 ≤ i < n-1, where
m is the value that was last returned by the getRowCount() method when it was passed the
RowSpecification object q with i-1 items, where pi = qi for all integer values of i in the range
0 ≤ i < n-1, with any changes implied by the update methods taken into account.
The data model is considered stable: user agents may assume that subsequent calls to the data
provider methods will return the same data, until one of the update methods is called on the
datagrid element. If a user agent is returned inconsistent data, for example if the number of
rows returned by getRowCount() varies in ways that do not match the calls made to the update
methods, the user agent may disable the datagrid. User agents that do not disable the
datagrid in inconsistent cases must honor the most recently returned values.
User agents may cache returned values so that the data provider is never asked for data that
could contradict earlier data. User agents must not cache the return value of the getRowMenu
method.
The exact algorithm used to populate the data grid is not defined here, since it will differ based
on the presentation used. However, the behavior of user agents must be consistent with the
descriptions above. For example, it would be non-conformant for a user agent to make cells
have both a checkbox and be editable, as the descriptions above state that cells that have a
checkbox cannot be edited.
4.11.2.6. Updating the datagrid
Whenever the data attribute is set to a new value, the datagrid must clear the current
selection, remove all the displayed rows, and plan to repopulate itself using the information from
the new data provider at the earliest opportunity.
There are a number of update methods that can be invoked on the datagrid element to cause it
to refresh itself in slightly less drastic ways:
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When the updateEverything() method is called, the user agent must repopulate the entire
datagrid. If the number of rows decreased, the selection must be updated appropriately. If the
number of rows increased, the new rows should be left unselected.
When the updateRowsChanged(row, count) method is called, the user agent must refresh the
rendering of the rows starting from the row specified by row, and including the count next
siblings of the row (or as many next siblings as it has, if that is less than count), including all
descendant rows.
When the updateRowsInserted(row, count) method is called, the user agent must assume
that count new rows have been inserted, such that the first new row is identified by row. The
user agent must update its rendering and the selection accordingly. The new rows should not be
selected.
When the updateRowsRemoved(row, count) method is called, the user agent must assume that
count rows have been removed starting from the row that used to be identifier by row. The user
agent must update its rendering and the selection accordingly.
The updateRowChanged(row) method must be exactly equivalent to calling

updateRowsChanged(row, 1).
When the updateColumnChanged(column) method is called, the user agent must refresh the
rendering of the specified column column, for all rows.
When the updateCellChanged(row, column) method is called, the user agent must refresh the
rendering of the cell on row row, in column column.
Any effects the update methods have on the datagrid's selection is not considered a change to
the selection, and must therefore not fire the select event.
These update methods should be called only by the data provider, or code acting on behalf of
the data provider. In particular, calling the updateRowsInserted() and updateRowsRemoved()
methods without actually inserting or removing rows from the data provider is likely to result in
inconsistent renderings (page 326), and the user agent is likely to disable the data grid.
4.11.2.7. Requirements for interactive user agents
This section only applies to interactive user agents.
If the datagrid element has a disabled attribute, then the user agent must disable the
datagrid, preventing the user from interacting with it. The datagrid element should still
continue to update itself when the data provider signals changes to the data, though. Obviously,
conformance requirements stating that datagrid elements must react to users in particular
ways do not apply when one is disabled.
If a row is openable (page 324), then the user should be able to toggle its open/closed state.
When a row's open/closed state changes, the user agent must update the rendering to match
the new state.
327
If a cell is a cell whose value can be cycled between multiple states (page 325), then the user
must be able to activate the cell to cycle its value. When the user activates this "cycling"
behavior of a cell, then the datagrid must invoke the data provider's cycleCell() method, with
a RowSpecification object representing the cell's row as the first argument and the cell's
column index as the second. The datagrid must act as if the datagrid's updateCellChanged()
method had been invoked with those same arguments immediately before the provider's
method was invoked.
When a cell has a checkbox (page 325), the user must be able to set the checkbox's state. When
the user changes the state of a checkbox in such a cell, the datagrid must invoke the data
provider's setCellCheckedState() method, with a RowSpecification object representing the
cell's row as the first argument, the cell's column index as the second, and the checkbox's new
state as the third. The state should be represented by the number 1 if the new state is checked,
0 if the new state is unchecked, and −1 if the new state is indeterminate (which must be
possible only if the cell has the indeterminate class set). The datagrid must act as if the
datagrid's updateCellChanged() method had been invoked, specifying the same cell,
immediately before the provider's method was invoked.
If a cell is editable (page 325), the user must be able to edit the data for that cell, and doing so
must cause the user agent to invoke the editCell() method of the data provider with three
arguments: a RowSpecification object representing the cell's row, the cell's column's index,
and the new text entered by the user. The user agent must act as if the updateCellChanged()
method had been invoked, with the same row and column specified, immediately before the
provider's method was invoked.
4.11.2.8. The selection
This section only applies to interactive user agents. For other user agents, the selection
attribute must return null.
interface DataGridSelection {
[IndexGetter] RowSpecification item(in unsigned long index);
boolean isSelected(in RowSpecification row);
void setSelected(in RowSpecification row, in boolean selected);
void selectAll();
void invert();
void clear();
};
Each datagrid element must keep track of which rows are currently selected. Initially no rows
are selected, but this can be changed via the methods described in this section.
The selection of a datagrid is represented by its selection DOM attribute, which must be a
DataGridSelection object.
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DataGridSelection objects represent the rows in the selection. In the selection the rows must
be ordered in the natural order of the data provider (and not, e.g., the rendered order). Rows
that are not rendered because one of their ancestors is closed must share the same selection
state as their nearest rendered ancestor. Such rows are not considered part of the selection for
the purposes of iterating over the selection.
Note: This selection API doesn't allow for hidden rows to be selected because
it is trivial to create a data provider that has infinite depth, which would then
require the selection to be infinite if every row, including every hidden row,
was selected.
The length attribute must return the number of rows currently present in the selection. The
item(index) method must return the indexth row in the selection. If the argument is out of
range (less than zero or greater than the number of selected rows minus one), then it must raise
an INDEX_SIZE_ERR exception. [DOM3CORE]
The isSelected() method must return the selected state of the row specified by its argument.
If the specified row exists and is selected, it must return true, otherwise it must return false.
The setSelected() method takes two arguments, row and selected. When invoked, it must set
the selection state of row row to selected if selected is true, and unselected if it is false. If row is
not a row in the data grid, the method must raise an INDEX_SIZE_ERR exception. If the specified
row is not rendered because one of its ancestors is closed, the method must do nothing.
The selectAll() method must mark all the rows in the data grid as selected. After a call to
selectAll(), the length attribute will return the number of rows in the data grid, not counting
children of closed rows.
The invert() method must cause all the rows in the selection that were marked as selected to
now be marked as not selected, and vice versa.
The clear() method must mark all the rows in the data grid to be marked as not selected. After
a call to clear(), the length attribute will return zero.
If the datagrid element has a multiple attribute, then the user must be able to select any
number of rows (zero or more). If the attribute is not present, then the user must not be able to
select more than a single row at a time, and selecting another one must unselect all the other
rows.
Note: This only applies to the user. Scripts can select multiple rows even when
the multiple attribute is absent.
Whenever the selection of a datagrid changes, whether due to the user interacting with the
element, or as a result of calls to methods of the selection object, a select event that bubbles
but is not cancelable must be fired on the datagrid element. If changes are made to the
selection via calls to the object's methods during the execution of a script, then the select
events must be coalesced into one, which must then be fired when the script execution has
completed.
329
Note: The DataGridSelection interface has no relation to the Selection
interface.
4.11.2.9. Columns and captions
This section only applies to interactive user agents.
Each datagrid element must keep track of which columns are currently being rendered. User
agents should initially show all the columns except those with the initially-hidden class, but
may allow users to hide or show columns. User agents should initially display the columns in the
order given by the data provider, but may allow this order to be changed by the user.
If columns are not being used, as might be the case if the data grid is being presented in an icon
view, or if an overview of data is being read in an aural context, then the text of the first column
of each row should be used to represent the row.
If none of the columns have any captions (i.e. if the data provider does not provide a
getCaptionText() method), then user agents may avoid showing the column headers at all.
This may prevent the user from performing actions on the columns (such as reordering them,
changing the sort column, and so on).
Note: Whatever the order used for rendering, and irrespective of what
columns are being shown or hidden, the "first column" as referred to in this
specification is always the column with index zero, and the "last column" is
always the column with the index one less than the value returned by the
getColumnCount() method of the data provider.
If a column is sortable (page 322), then the user must be able to invoke it to sort the data. When
the user does so, then the datagrid must invoke the data provider's toggleColumnSortState()
method, with the column's index as the only argument. The datagrid must then act as if the
datagrid's updateEverything() method had been invoked.
4.11.3 The command element
Categories

Content model:
Empty.
330
type
label
icon
hidden
disabled
checked
radiogroup
default
Also, the title attribute has special semantics on this
element.
DOM interface:
interface HTMLCommandElement : HTMLElement {

attribute DOMString label;
attribute DOMString icon;
attribute boolean hidden;
attribute boolean checked;
attribute DOMString radiogroup;
attribute boolean default;
void click(); // shadows HTMLElement.click()
};
The Command interface must also be implemented by this element.
The command element represents a command that the user can invoke.
The type attribute indicates the kind of command: either a normal command with an associated
action, or a state or option that can be toggled, or a selection of one item from a list of items.
The attribute's value must be either "command", "checkbox", or "radio", denoting each of these
three types of commands respectively. The attribute may also be omitted if the element is to
represent the first of these types, a simple command.
The label attribute gives the name of the command, as shown to the user.
The title attribute gives a hint describing the command, which might be shown to the user to
help him.
The icon attribute gives a picture that represents the command. If the attribute is specified, the
attribute's value must contain a valid URL (page 29).
The hidden attribute is a boolean attribute (page 37) that, if present, indicates that the
command is not relevant and is to be hidden.
331
The disabled attribute is a boolean attribute (page 37) that, if present, indicates that the
command is not available in the current state.
Note: The distinction between Disabled State (page 337) and Hidden State
(page 337) is subtle. A command should be Disabled if, in the same context, it
could be enabled if only certain aspects of the situation were changed. A
command should be marked as Hidden if, in that situation, the command will
never be enabled. For example, in the context menu for a water faucet, the
command "open" might be Disabled if the faucet is already open, but the
command "eat" would be marked Hidden since the faucet could never be
eaten.
The checked attribute is a boolean attribute (page 37) that, if present, indicates that the
command is selected.
The radiogroup attribute gives the name of the group of commands that will be toggled when
the command itself is toggled, for commands whose type attribute has the value "radio". The
scope of the name is the child list of the parent element.
If the command element is used when generating a context menu, then the default attribute
indicates, if present, that the command is the one that would have been invoked if the user had
directly activated the menu's subject instead of using its context menu. The default attribute is
a boolean attribute (page 37).
Need an example that shows an element that, if double-clicked, invokes an action, but
that also has a context menu, showing the various command attributes off, and that has a
default command.
The type, label, icon, hidden, disabled, checked, radiogroup, and default DOM attributes
must reflect (page 55) their respective namesake content attributes.
The click() method's behavior depends on the value of the type attribute of the element, as
follows:
↪ If the type attribute has the value checkbox

If the element has a checked attribute, the UA must remove that attribute. Otherwise,
the UA must add a checked attribute, with the literal value checked. The UA must then
fire a click event (page 374) at the element.
↪ If the type attribute has the value radio

If the element has a parent, then the UA must walk the list of child nodes of that parent
element, and for each node that is a command element, if that element has a
radiogroup attribute whose value exactly matches the current element's (treating
missing radiogroup attributes as if they were the empty string), and has a checked
attribute, must remove that attribute and fire a click event (page 374) at the element.
Then, the element's checked attribute attribute must be set to the literal value checked
and a click event must be fired at the element.
332
↪ Otherwise
The UA must fire a click event (page 374) at the element.
Note: Firing a synthetic click event at the element does not cause any of the
actions described above to happen.
should change all the above so it actually is just triggered by a click event, then we could
remove the shadowing click() method and rely on actual events.
Need to define the command="" attribute
Note: command elements are not rendered unless they form part of a menu
(page 333).
4.11.4 The menu element
Categories
If there is a menu element ancestor: phrasing content (page 90).

If there is a menu element ancestor: where phrasing content (page 90) is expected.
Content model:
Either: Zero or more li elements.
Or: Phrasing content (page 90).
type
label
autosubmit
DOM interface:
interface HTMLMenuElement : HTMLElement {

attribute DOMString label;
attribute boolean autosubmit;
};
The menu element represents a list of commands.
The type attribute is an enumerated attribute (page 54) indicating the kind of menu being
declared. The attribute has three states. The context keyword maps to the context menu
333
state, in which the element is declaring a context menu. The toolbar keyword maps to the tool
bar state, in which the element is declaring a tool bar. The attribute may also be omitted. The
missing value default is the list state, which indicates that the element is merely a list of
commands that is neither declaring a context menu nor defining a tool bar.
If a menu element's type attribute is in the context menu (page 333) state, then the element
represents the commands of a context menu, and the user can only interact with the commands
if that context menu is activated.
If a menu element's type attribute is in the tool bar (page 334) state, then the element
represents a list of active commands that the user can immediately interact with.
If a menu element's type attribute is in the list (page 334) state, then the element either
represents an unordered list of items (each represented by an li element), each of which
represents a command that the user may perform or activate, or, if the element has no li
element children, flow content (page 89) describing available commands.
The label attribute gives the label of the menu. It is used by user agents to display nested
menus in the UI. For example, a context menu containing another menu would use the nested
menu's label attribute for the submenu's menu label.
The autosubmit attribute is a boolean attribute (page 37) that, if present, indicates that
selections made to form controls in this menu are to result in the control's form being
immediately submitted.
If a change event bubbles through a menu element, then, in addition to any other default action
that that event might have, the UA must act as if the following was an additional default action
for that event: if (when it comes time to execute the default action) the menu element has an
autosubmit attribute, and the target of the event is an input element, and that element has a
type attribute whose value is either radio or checkbox, and the input element in question has
a non-null form DOM attribute, then the UA must invoke the submit() method of the form
element indicated by that DOM attribute.
4.11.4.1. Introduction
...
4.11.4.2. Building menus and tool bars
A menu (or tool bar) consists of a list of zero or more of the following components:
• Commands (page 337), which can be marked as default commands

• Separators
• Other menus (which allows the list to be nested)
334
The list corresponding to a particular menu element is built by iterating over its child nodes. For
each child node in tree order (page 28), the required behavior depends on what the node is, as
follows:
↪ An element that defines a command (page 337)

Append the command to the menu. If the element is a command element with a default
attribute, mark the command as being a default command.
↪ An hr element
↪ An option element that has a value attribute set to the empty string, and has a
disabled attribute, and whose textContent consists of a string of one or more
hyphens (U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS)
Append a separator to the menu.
↪ An li element
Iterate over the children of the li element.
↪ A menu element with no label attribute
↪ A select element
Append a separator to the menu, then iterate over the children of the menu or select
element, then append another separator.
↪ A menu element with a label attribute
↪ An optgroup element
Append a submenu to the menu, using the value of the element's label attribute as the
label of the menu. The submenu must be constructed by taking the element and
creating a new menu for it using the complete process described in this section.
↪ Any other node

We should support ▶ Ignore (page 28) the node.
label in the algorithm
above -- just iterate
through the contents
Once all the nodes have been processed as described above, the user agent must the
like with li, to support post-process the menu as follows:
input elements in
label elements. Also,
optgroup elements 1. Any menu item with no label, or whose label is the empty string, must be removed.
without labels should
be ignored (maybe? or
at least should say they 2. Any sequence of two or more separators in a row must be collapsed to a single
have no label so that
they are dropped separator.
below), and select
elements inside label
elements may need
3. Any separator at the start or end of the menu must be removed.
special processing.
4.11.4.3. Context menus
The contextmenu attribute gives the element's context menu (page 335). The value must be the
ID of a menu element in the DOM. If the node that would be obtained by the invoking the
getElementById() method using the attribute's value as the only argument is null or not a menu
element, then the element has no assigned context menu. Otherwise, the element's assigned
context menu is the element so identified.
335
When an element's context menu is requested (e.g. by the user right-clicking the element, or
pressing a context menu key), the UA must fire a contextmenu event (page 375) on the element
for which the menu was requested.
Note: Typically, therefore, the firing of the contextmenu event will be the
default action of a mouseup or keyup event. The exact sequence of events is
UA-dependent, as it will vary based on platform conventions.
The default action of the contextmenu event depends on whether the element has a context
menu assigned (using the contextmenu attribute) or not. If it does not, the default action must
be for the user agent to show its default context menu, if it has one.
Context menus should inherit (so clicking on a span in a paragraph with a context menu
should show the menu).
If the element does have a context menu assigned, then the user agent must fire a show event
(page 375) on the relevant menu element.
The default action of this event is that the user agent must show a context menu built (page
334) from the menu element.
The user agent may also provide access to its default context menu, if any, with the context
menu shown. For example, it could merge the menu items from the two menus together, or
provide the page's context menu as a submenu of the default menu.
If the user dismisses the menu without making a selection, nothing in particular happens.
If the user selects a menu item that represents a command, then the UA must invoke that
command's Action (page 337).
Context menus must not, while being shown, reflect changes in the DOM; they are constructed
as the default action of the show event and must remain like that until dismissed.
User agents may provide means for bypassing the context menu processing model, ensuring
that the user can always access the UA's default context menus. For example, the user agent
could handle right-clicks that have the Shift key depressed in such a way that it does not fire the
contextmenu event and instead always shows the default context menu.
The contextMenu attribute must reflect (page 55) the contextmenu content attribute.
4.11.4.4. Toolbars
Toolbars are a kind of menu that is always visible.
When a menu element has a type attribute with the value toolbar, then the user agent must
build (page 334) the menu for that menu element and render it in the document in a position
appropriate for that menu element.
The user agent must reflect changes made to the menu's DOM immediately in the UI.
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4.11.5 Commands
A command is the abstraction behind menu items, buttons, and links. Once a command is
defined, other parts of the interface can refer to the same command, allowing many access
points to a single feature to share aspects such as the disabled state.
Commands are defined to have the following facets:
Type
The kind of command: "command", meaning it is a normal command; "radio", meaning that
triggering the command will, amongst other things, set the Checked State (page 337) to
true (and probably uncheck some other commands); or "checkbox", meaning that triggering
the command will, amongst other things, toggle the value of the Checked State (page 337).
ID
The name of the command, for referring to the command from the markup or from script. If
a command has no ID, it is an anonymous command.
Label
The name of the command as seen by the user.
Hint
A helpful or descriptive string that can be shown to the user.
Icon
An absolute URL (page 33) identifying a graphical image that represents the action. A
command might not have an Icon.
Hidden State
Whether the command is hidden or not (basically, whether it should be shown in menus).
Disabled State
We could make this ▶ Whether the command can be triggered or not. If the Hidden State (page 337) is true
into a string value that (hidden) then the Disabled State (page 337) will be true (disabled) regardless.
acts as a Hint for why
the command is
disabled. Checked State
Whether the command is checked or not.
Action
The actual effect that triggering the command will have. This could be a scripted event
handler, a URL (page 29) to which to navigate (page 410), or a form submission.
Triggers
The list of elements that can trigger the command. The element defining a command is
always in the list of elements that can trigger the command. For anonymous commands,
only the element defining the command is on the list, since other elements have no way to
refer to it.
Commands are represented by elements in the DOM. Any element that can define a command
also implements the Command interface:
337
Actually even better would be to just mix it straight into those interfaces somehow.
[NoInterfaceObject] interface Command {

readonly attribute DOMString commandType;
readonly attribute DOMString id;
readonly attribute DOMString label;
readonly attribute DOMString title;
readonly attribute DOMString icon;
readonly attribute boolean hidden;
readonly attribute boolean disabled;
readonly attribute boolean checked;
void click();
readonly attribute HTMLCollection triggers;
readonly attribute Command command;
};
The Command interface is implemented by any element capable of defining a command. (If an
element can define a command, its definition will list this interface explicitly.) All the attributes
of the Command interface are read-only. Elements implementing this interface may implement
other interfaces that have attributes with identical names but that are mutable; in bindings that
flatten all supported interfaces on the object, the mutable attributes must shadow the readonly
attributes defined in the Command interface.
The commandType attribute must return a string whose value is either "command", "radio", or
"checked", depending on whether the Type (page 337) of the command defined by the element
is "command", "radio", or "checked" respectively. If the element does not define a command, it
must return null.
The id attribute must return the command's ID (page 337), or null if the element does not define
a command or defines an anonymous command (page 337). This attribute will be shadowed by
the id DOM attribute on the HTMLElement interface.
The label attribute must return the command's Label (page 337), or null if the element does not
define a command or does not specify a Label (page 337). This attribute will be shadowed by the
label DOM attribute on option and command elements.
The title attribute must return the command's Hint (page 337), or null if the element does not
define a command or does not specify a Hint (page 337). This attribute will be shadowed by the
title DOM attribute on the HTMLElement interface.
The icon attribute must return the absolute URL (page 33) of the command's Icon (page 337). If
the element does not specify an icon, or if the element does not define a command, then the
attribute must return null. This attribute will be shadowed by the icon DOM attribute on command
elements.
The hidden attribute must return true if the command's Hidden State (page 337) is that the
command is hidden, and false if it is that the command is not hidden. If the element does not
338
define a command, the attribute must return false. This attribute will be shadowed by the
hidden DOM attribute on command elements.
The disabled attribute must return true if the command's Disabled State (page 337) is that the
command is disabled, and false if the command is not disabled. This attribute is not affected by
the command's Hidden State (page 337). If the element does not define a command, the
attribute must return false. This attribute will be shadowed by the disabled attribute on button,
input, option, and command elements.
The checked attribute must return true if the command's Checked State (page 337) is that the
command is checked, and false if it is that the command is not checked. If the element does not
define a command, the attribute must return false. This attribute will be shadowed by the
checked attribute on input and command elements.
The click() method must trigger the Action (page 337) for the command. If the element does
not define a command, this method must do nothing. This method will be shadowed by the
click() method on HTML elements (page 27), and is included only for completeness.
The triggers attribute must return a list containing the elements that can trigger the command
(the command's Triggers (page 337)). The list must be live (page 28). While the element does
not define a command, the list must be empty.
The commands attribute of the document's HTMLDocument interface must return an

HTMLCollection rooted at the Document node, whose filter matches only elements that define
commands and have IDs.
The following elements can define commands: a, button, input, option, command.
4.11.5.1. Using the a element to define a command
An a element with an href attribute defines a command (page 337).
The Type (page 337) of the command is "command".
The ID (page 337) of the command is the value of the id attribute of the element, if the attribute
is present and not empty. Otherwise the command is an anonymous command (page 337).
The Label (page 337) of the command is the string given by the element's textContent DOM
attribute.
The Hint (page 337) of the command is the value of the title attribute of the element. If the
attribute is not present, the Hint (page 337) is the empty string.
The Icon (page 337) of the command is the absolute URL (page 33) obtained from resolving
(page 31) the value of the src attribute of the first img element descendant of the element, if
there is such an element and resolving its attribute is successful. Otherwise, there is no Icon
(page 337) for the command.
The Hidden State (page 337) and Disabled State (page 337) facets of the command are always
false. (The command is always enabled.)
339
The Checked State (page 337) of the command is always false. (The command is never
checked.)
The Action (page 337) of the command is to fire a click event (page 374) at the element.
4.11.5.2. Using the button element to define a command
A button element always defines a command (page 337).
The Type (page 337), ID (page 337), Label (page 337), Hint (page 337), Icon (page 337), Hidden
State (page 337), Checked State (page 337), and Action (page 337) facets of the command are
determined as for a elements (page 339) (see the previous section).
The Disabled State (page 337) of the command mirrors the disabled state of the button.
Typically this is given by the element's disabled attribute, but certain button types become
disabled at other times too (for example, the move-up button type is disabled when it would
have no effect).
4.11.5.3. Using the input element to define a command
An input element whose type attribute is one of submit, reset, button, radio, checkbox,
move-up, move-down, add, and remove defines a command (page 337).
The Type (page 337) of the command is "radio" if the type attribute has the value radio,
"checkbox" if the type attribute has the value checkbox, and "command" otherwise.
The Label (page 337) of the command depends on the Type of the command:
If the Type (page 337) is "command", then it is the string given by the value attribute, if any,
and a UA-dependent value that the UA uses to label the button itself if the attribute is absent.
Otherwise, the Type (page 337) is "radio" or "checkbox". If the element has a label element
associated with it, the textContent of the first such element is the Label (page 337) (in DOM
terms, this the string given by element.labels[0].textContent). Otherwise, the value of the
value attribute, if present, is the Label (page 337). Otherwise, the Label (page 337) is the empty
string.
The Hint (page 337) of the command is the value of the title attribute of the input element. If
the attribute is not present, the Hint (page 337) is the empty string.
There is no Icon (page 337) for the command.
The Hidden State (page 337) of the command is always false. (The command is never hidden.)
The Disabled State (page 337) of the command mirrors the disabled state of the control.
Typically this is given by the element's disabled attribute, but certain input types become
340
disabled at other times too (for example, the move-up input type is disabled when it would have
no effect).
The Checked State (page 337) of the command is true if the command is of Type (page 337)
"radio" or "checkbox" and the element has a checked attribute, and false otherwise.
The Action (page 337) of the command is to fire a click event (page 374) at the element.
4.11.5.4. Using the option element to define a command
An option element with an ancestor select element and either no value attribute or a value
attribute that is not the empty string defines a command (page 337).
The Type (page 337) of the command is "radio" if the option's nearest ancestor select element
has no multiple attribute, and "checkbox" if it does.
The Label (page 337) of the command is the value of the option element's label attribute, if
there is one, or the value of the option element's textContent DOM attribute if it doesn't.
The Hint (page 337) of the command is the string given by the element's title attribute, if any,
and the empty string if the attribute is absent.
There is no Icon (page 337) for the command.
The Hidden State (page 337) of the command is always false. (The command is never hidden.)
The Disabled State (page 337) of the command is true (disabled) if the element has a disabled
attribute, and false otherwise.
The Checked State (page 337) of the command is true (checked) if the element's selected DOM
attribute is true, and false otherwise.
The Action (page 337) of the command depends on its Type (page 337). If the command is of
Type (page 337) "radio" then this must set the selected DOM attribute of the option element
to true, otherwise it must toggle the state of the selected DOM attribute (set it to true if it is
false and vice versa). Then a change event must be fired (page 374) on the option element's
nearest ancestor select element (if there is one), as if the selection had been changed directly.
4.11.5.5. Using the command element to define a command
A command element defines a command (page 337).
The Type (page 337) of the command is "radio" if the command's type attribute is "radio",
"checkbox" if the attribute's value is "checkbox", and "command" otherwise.
341
The Label (page 337) of the command is the value of the element's label attribute, if there is
one, or the empty string if it doesn't.
The Hint (page 337) of the command is the string given by the element's title attribute, if any,
and the empty string if the attribute is absent.
The Icon (page 337) for the command is the absolute URL (page 33) obtained from resolving
(page 31) the value of the element's icon attribute, if it has such an attribute and resolving it is
successful. Otherwise, there is no Icon (page 337) for the command.
The Hidden State (page 337) of the command is true (hidden) if the element has a hidden
The Disabled State (page 337) of the command is true (disabled) if the element has either a
disabled attribute or a hidden attribute (or both), and false otherwise.
The Checked State (page 337) of the command is true (checked) if the element has a checked
The Action (page 337) of the command is to invoke the behavior described in the definition of
the click() method of the HTMLCommandElement interface.
4.12 Data Templates
4.12.1 Introduction
...examples...
4.12.2 The datatemplate element
Categories

As the root element of an XML document (page 71).
Content model:
Zero or more rule elements.
None.
342
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The datatemplate element brings together the various rules that form a data template. The
element doesn't itself do anything exciting.
4.12.3 The rule element
Categories
None.

As a child of a datatemplate element.
Content model:
Anything, regardless of the children's required contexts (but see prose).
condition
mode
DOM interface:
interface HTMLRuleElement : HTMLElement {

attribute DOMString condition;
attribute DOMString mode;
readonly attribute DOMTokenString modeList;
};
The rule element represents a template of content that is to be used for elements when
updating an element's generated content (page 349).
The condition attribute, if specified, must contain a valid selector. It specifies which nodes in
the data tree will have the condition's template applied. [SELECTORS]
If the condition attribute is not specified, then the condition applies to all elements, text nodes,
CDATA nodes, and processing instructions.
The mode attribute, if specified, must have a value that is an unordered set of unique
space-separated tokens (page 52) representing the various modes for which the rule applies.
When, and only when, the mode attribute is omitted, the rule applies if and only if the mode is
the empty string. A mode is invoked by the nest element; for the first node (the root node) of
the data tree, the mode is the empty string.
The contents of rule elements form a template, and may be anything that, when the parent
datatemplate is applied to some conforming data, results in a conforming DOM tree.
343
The condition DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the condition content attribute.
The mode and modeList DOM attributes must reflect (page 55) the mode content attribute.
4.12.4 The nest element
Categories
None.

As a child of a descendant of a rule element, regardless of the element's content model.
Content model:
Empty.
filter
mode
DOM interface:
interface HTMLNestElement : HTMLElement {

attribute DOMString filter;
attribute DOMString mode;
};
The nest element represents a point in a template where the user agent should recurse and
start inserting the children of the data node that matches the rule in which the nest element
finds itself.
The filter attribute, if specified, must contain a valid selector. It specifies which of the child
nodes in the data tree will be examined for further processing at this point. [SELECTORS]
If the filter attribute is not specified, then all elements, text nodes, CDATA nodes, and
processing instructions are processed.
The mode attribute, if specified, must have a value that is a word token consisting of one or more
characters, none of which are space characters (page 36). It gives the mode which will be in
effect when looking at the rules in the data template.
The filter DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the filter content attribute.
The mode DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the mode content attribute.
4.12.5 Global attributes for data templates
The template attribute may be added to an element to indicate that the template processing
model is to be applied to that element.
344
The template attribute, when specified, must be a valid URL (page 29) to an XML or HTML
document, or a fragment identifier pointing at another part of the document. If there is a
fragment identifier present, then the element with that ID in the target document must be a
datatemplate element, otherwise, the root element must be a datatemplate element.
The template DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the template content attribute.
The ref attribute may be specified on any element on which the template attribute is specified.
If it is specified, it must be a valid URL (page 29) to an XML or HTML document, or a fragment
identifier pointing at another part of the document.
When an element has a template attribute but no ref attribute, the element may, instead of its
usual content model, have a single element of any kind. That element is then used as the root
node of the data for the template.
The ref DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the ref content attribute.
The registrationmark attribute may be specified on any element that is a descendant of a

rule element, except nest elements. Its value may be any string, including the empty string
(which is the value that is assumed if the attribute is omitted). This attribute performs a role
similar to registration marks in printing presses: when the generated content is regenerated,
elements with the same registrationmark are lined up. This allows the author to disambiguate
how elements should be moved around when generated content is regenerated in the face of
changes to the data tree.
The registrationMark DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the registrationmark content
attribute.

4.12.6.1. The originalContent DOM attribute
The originalContent is set to a DocumentFragment to hold the original children of an element

that has been replaced by content generated for a data template. Initially, it must be null. Its
value is set when the template attribute is set to a usable value, and is unset when the attribute
is removed.
Note: The originalContent DOM attribute can thus be used as an indicator of

whether a template is currently being applied, just as the templateElement
DOM attribute can.
4.12.6.2. The template attribute
Setting: When an HTML element (page 27) without a template attribute has its template
attribute set, the user agent must fetch the specified file and parse it (without a browsing
context (page 354)) to obtain a DOM. If the URL (page 29), when resolved (page 31), is the same
as the document's address, then the current document's DOM must be assumed to be that
345
parsed DOM. While this loading and parsing is in progress, the element is said to be busy loading
the template rules or data.
If the resource specified by the template attribute is not the current document and does not
have an XML MIME type, or if an XML parse error is found while parsing the resource, then the
resource cannot be successfully parsed, and the user agent must jump to the failed to parse
(page 346) steps below.
Once the DOM in question has been parsed, assuming that it indeed can be parsed and does so
successfully, the user agent must wait for no scripts to be executing, and as soon as that
opportunity arises, run the following algorithm:
1. If the template attribute's value has a fragment identifier, and, in the DOM in question,
it identifies a datatemplate element, then set the templateElement DOM attribute to
that element.
Otherwise, if the template attribute value does not have a fragment identifier, and the
root element of the DOM in question is a datatemplate element, then set the
templateElement DOM attribute to that element.
Otherwise, jump to the failed to parse (page 346) steps below.
2. Create a new DocumentFragment and move all the nodes that are children of the
element to that DocumentFragment object. Set the originalContent DOM attribute on
the element to this new DocumentFragment object.
3. Jump to the steps below for updating the generated content (page 349).
If the resource has failed to parse, the user agent must fire a simple event (page 375) with the
name error at the element on which the template attribute was found.
Unsetting: When an HTML element (page 27) with a template attribute has its template
attribute removed or dynamically changed from one value to another, the user agent must run
the following algorithm:
1. Set the templateElement DOM attribute to null.
2. If the originalContent DOM attribute of the element is not null, run these substeps:
1. Remove all the nodes that are children of the element.
2. Append the nodes in the originalContent DocumentFragment to the element.
3. Set originalContent to null.
(If the originalContent DOM attribute of the element is null, then either there was an
error loading or parsing the previous template, or the previous template never finished
loading; in either case, there is nothing to undo.)
3. If the template attribute was changed (as opposed to simply removed), then act as if it
was now set to its new value (page 345) (fetching the specified page, etc, as described
above).
346
The templateElement DOM attribute is updated by the above algorithm to point to the currently
active datatemplate element. Initially, the attribute must have the value null.
4.12.6.3. The ref attribute
Setting: When an HTML element (page 27) without a ref attribute has its ref attribute set, the
user agent must fetch the specified file and parse it (without a browsing context (page 354)) to
obtain a DOM. If the URL (page 29), when resolved (page 31), is the same as the document's
address, then the current document's DOM must be assumed to be that parsed DOM. While this
loading and parsing is in progress, the element is said to be busy loading the template rules or
data.
If the resource specified by the ref attribute is not the current document and does not have an
XML MIME type, or if an XML parse error is found while parsing the resource, then the resource
cannot be successfully parsed, and the user agent must jump to the failed to parse (page 347)
steps below.
Once the DOM in question has been parsed, assuming that it indeed can be parsed and does so
successfully, the user agent must wait for no scripts to be executing, and as soon as that
opportunity arises, run the following algorithm:
1. If the ref attribute value does not have a fragment identifier, then set the refNode DOM
attribute to the Document node of that DOM.
Otherwise, if the ref attribute's value has a fragment identifier, and, in the DOM in
question, that fragment identifier identifies an element, then set the refNode DOM
attribute to that element.
Otherwise, jump to the failed to parse (page 347) steps below.
2. Jump to the steps below for updating the generated content (page 349).
If the resource has failed to parse, the user agent must fire a simple event (page 375) with the
name error at the element on which the ref attribute was found, and must then jump to the
steps below for updating the generated content (page 349) (the contents of the element will be
used instead of the specified resource).
Unsetting: When an HTML element (page 27) with a ref attribute has its ref attribute removed
or dynamically changed from one value to another, the user agent must run the following
algorithm:
1. Set the refNode DOM attribute to null.
2. If the ref attribute was changed (as opposed to simply removed), then act as if it was
now set to its new value (page 347) (fetching the specified page, etc, as described
above). Otherwise, jump to the steps below for updating the generated content (page
349).
The refNode DOM attribute is updated by the above algorithm to point to the current data tree,
if one is specified explicitly. If it is null, then the data tree is given by the originalContent DOM
347
attribute, unless that is also null, in which case no template is currently being applied. Initially,
the attribute must have the value null.
4.12.6.4. The NodeDataTemplate interface
All objects that implement the Node interface must also implement the NodeDataTemplate
interface, whose members must be accessible using binding-specific casting mechanisms.
interface NodeDataTemplate {
readonly attribute Node dataNode;
};
The dataNode DOM attribute returns the node for which this node was generated. It must initially
be null. It is set on the nodes that form the content generated during the algorithm for updating
the generated content (page 349) of elements that are using the data template feature.
4.12.6.5. Mutations
An element with a non-null templateElement is said to be a data tree user of the node
identified by the element's refNode attribute, as well as all of that node's children, or, if that
attribute is null, of the node identified by the element's originalContent, as well as all that
node's children.
Nodes that have one or more data tree users (page 348) associated with them (as per the
previous paragraph) are themselves termed data tree component nodes.
Whenever a data tree component node (page 348) changes its name or value, or has one of its
attributes change name or value, or has an attribute added or removed, or has a child added or
removed, the user agent must update the generated content of all of that node's data tree users
(page 348).
An element with a non-null templateElement is also said to be a template tree user of the
node identified by the element's templateElement attribute, as well as all of that node's
children.
Nodes that have one or more template tree users (page 348) associated with them (as per the
previous paragraph) are themselves termed template tree component nodes.
Whenever a template tree component node (page 348) changes its name or value, or has one of
its attributes change name or value, or has an attribute added or removed, or has a child added
or removed, the user agent must update the generated content of all of that node's template
tree users (page 348).
Note: In other words, user agents update the content generated from a
template whenever either the backing data changes or the template itself
changes.
348
4.12.6.6. Updating the generated content
When the user agent is to update the generated content of an element that uses a template,
the user agent must run the following steps:
1. Let destination be the element whose generated content is being updated.
2. If the destination element is busy loading the template rules or data, then abort these
steps. Either the steps will be invoked again once the loading has completed, or the
loading will fail and the generated content will be removed at that point.
3. Let template tree be the element given by destination's templateElement DOM

attribute. If it is null, then abort these steps. There are no rules to apply.
4. Let data tree be the node given by destination's refNode DOM attribute. If it is null, then
let data tree be the node given by the originalContent DOM node.
5. Let existing nodes be a set of ordered lists of nodes, each list being identified by a tuple
consisting of a node, a node type and name, and a registration mark (page 345) (a
string).
6. For each node node that is a descendant of destination, if any, add node to the list
identified by the tuple given by: node's dataNode DOM attribute; the node's node type
and, if it's an element, its qualified name (that is, its namespace and local name), or, if
it's a processing instruction, its target name, and the value of the node's
registrationmark attribute, if it has one, or the empty string otherwise.
7. Remove all the child nodes of destination, so that its child node list is empty.
8. Run the Levenberg data node algorithm (page 349) (described below) using destination
as the destination node, data tree as the source node, template tree as the rule
container, the empty string as the mode, and the existing nodes lists as the lists of
existing nodes.
The Levenberg algorithm consists of two algorithms that invoke each other recursively, the
Levenberg data node algorithm (page 349) and the Levenberg template node algorithm (page
350). These algorithms use the data structures initialized by the set of steps described above.
The Levenberg data node algorithm is as follows. It is always invoked with three DOM nodes,
one string, and a set of lists as arguments: the destination node, the source node, the rule
container, the mode string, and the existing nodes lists respectively.
1. Let condition be the first rule element child of the rule container element, or null if
there aren't any.
2. If condition is null, follow these substeps:
1. If the source node is an element, then, for each child child node of the source
node element, in tree order, invoke the Levenberg data node algorithm (page
349) recursively, with destination node, child node, rule container, the empty
string, and existing nodes lists as the five arguments respectively.
349
2. Abort the current instance of the Levenberg data node algorithm (page 349),
returning to whatever algorithm invoked it.
3. Let matches be a boolean with the value true.
4. If the condition element has a mode attribute, but the value of that attribute is not a
mode match for the current mode string, then let matches be false.
5. If the condition element has a condition attribute, and the attribute's value, when
evaluated as a selector (page 352), does not match the current source node, then let
matches be false.
6. If matches is true, then follow these substeps:
1. For each child child node of the condition element, in tree order, invoke the
Levenberg template node algorithm (page 350) recursively, with the five
arguments being destination node, source node, rule container, child node, and
existing nodes lists respectively.
2. Abort the current instance of the Levenberg data node algorithm (page 349),
returning to whatever algorithm invoked it.
7. Let condition be the next rule element that is a child of the rule container element, after
the condition element itself, or null if there are no more rule elements.
8. Jump to step 2 in this set of steps.
The Levenberg template node algorithm is as follows. It is always invoked with four DOM
nodes and a set of lists as arguments: the destination node, the source node, the rule container,
the template node, and the existing nodes lists respectively.
1. If template node is a comment node, abort the current instance of the Levenberg
template node algorithm (page 350), returning to whatever algorithm invoked it.
2. If template node is a nest element, then run these substeps:
1. If source node is not an element, then abort the current instance of the
Levenberg template node algorithm (page 350), returning to whatever algorithm
invoked it.
2. If the template node has a mode attribute, then let mode be the value of that
attribute; otherwise, let mode be the empty string.
3. Let child node be the first child of the source node element, or null if source
node has no children.
4. If child node is null, abort the current instance of the Levenberg template node
algorithm (page 350), returning to whatever algorithm invoked it.
5. If the template node element has a filter attribute, and the attribute's value,
when evaluated as a selector (page 352), matches child node, then invoke the
Levenberg data node algorithm (page 349) recursively, with destination node,
350
child node, rule container, mode, and existing nodes lists as the five arguments
respectively.
6. Let child node be child node's next sibling, or null if child node was the last node
of source node.
7. Return to step 4 in this set of substeps.
3. If template node is an element, and that element has a registrationmark attribute,

then let registration mark have the value of that attribute. Otherwise, let registration
mark be the empty string.
4. If there is a list in the existing nodes lists corresponding to the tuple (source node, the
node type and name of template node, registration mark), and that list is not empty,
then run the following substeps. (For an element node, the name of the node is its
qualified tag name, i.e. its namespace and local name. For a processing instruction, its
name is the target. For other types of nodes, there is no name.)
1. Let new node be the first node in that list.
2. Remove new node from that list.
3. If new node is an element, remove all the child nodes of new node, so that its
child node list is empty.
Otherwise, if there is no matching list, or there was, but it is now empty, then run these
steps instead:
1. Let new node be a shallow clone of template node.
2. Let new node's dataNode DOM attribute be source node.
5. If new node is an element, run these substeps:
1. For each attribute on new node, if an attribute with the same qualified name is
not present on template node, remove that attribute.
2. For each attribute attribute on template node, run these substeps:
1. Let expanded be the result of passing the value of attribute to the text
expansion algorithm for templates (page 352) along with source node.
2. If an attribute with the same qualified name as attribute is already

present on new node, then: if its value is different from expanded,
replace its value with expanded.
3. Otherwise, if there is no attribute with the same qualified name as

attribute on new node, then add an attribute with the same namespace,
prefix, and local name as attribute, with its value set to expanded's.
Otherwise, the new node is a text node, CDATA block, or PI. Run these substeps instead:
351
1. Let expanded be the result of passing the node value of template node (the
content of the text node, CDATA block, or PI) to the text expansion algorithm for
templates (page 352) along with source node.
2. If the value of the new node is different from expanded, then set the value of
new node to expanded.
6. Append new node to destination.
7. If template node is an element, then, for each child child node of the template node
element, in tree order, invoke the Levenberg template node algorithm (page 350)
recursively, with the five arguments being new child, source node, rule container, child
node, and existing nodes lists respectively.
Define: evaluated as a selector
Define: text expansion algorithm for templates
4.13 Miscellaneous elements
4.13.1 The legend element
Categories
None.

As the first child of a fieldset element.
As the first child of a details element.
As a child of a figure element, if there are no other legend element children of
that element.
Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The legend element represents a title or explanatory caption for the rest of the contents of the
legend element's parent element.
352
4.13.2 The div element
Categories
None.

Content model:
None.
DOM interface:
Uses HTMLElement.
The div element represents nothing at all. It can be used with the class, lang/xml:lang, and
title attributes to mark up semantics common to a group of consecutive elements.
Allowing div elements to contain phrasing content makes it easy for authors to abuse div,
using it with the class="" attribute to the point of not having any other elements in the
markup. This is a disaster from an accessibility point of view, and it would be nice if we could
somehow make such pages non-compliant without preventing people from using divs as the
extension mechanism that they are, to handle things the spec can't otherwise do (like making
new widgets).
353
5. Web browsers
This section describes features that apply most directly to Web browsers. Having said that,
unless specified elsewhere, the requirements defined in this section do apply to all user agents,
whether they are Web browsers or not.
5.1 Browsing contexts
A browsing context is a collection of one or more Document objects, and one or more views
(page 354).
At any one time, one of the Documents in a browsing context (page 354) is the active
document. The collection of Documents is the browsing context (page 354)'s session history
(page 404).
A view is a user agent interface tied to a particular media used for the presentation of Document
objects in some media. A view may be interactive. Each view is represented by an
AbstractView object. Each view belongs to a browsing context (page 354). [DOM2VIEWS]
Note: The document attribute of an AbstractView object representing a view

(page 354) gives the Document object of the view's browsing context (page
354)'s active document (page 354). [DOM2VIEWS]
Note: Events that use the UIEvent interface are related to a specific view (page
354) (the view in which the event happened); the AbstractView of that view is
given in the event object's view attribute. [DOM3EVENTS]
Note: A typical Web browser has one obvious view (page 354) per browsing
context (page 354): the browser's window (screen media). If a page is printed,
however, a second view becomes evident, that of the print media. The two
views always share the same underlying Document, but they have a different
presentation of that document. A speech browser also establishes a browsing
context, one with a view in the speech media.
Note: A Document does not necessarily have a browsing context (page 354)
associated with it. In particular, data mining tools are likely to never
instantiate browsing contexts.
The main view (page 354) through which a user primarily interacts with a user agent is the
default view.
Note: The default view (page 354) of a Document is given by the defaultView
attribute on the Document object's DocumentView interface. [DOM3VIEWS]
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When a browsing context (page 354) is first created, it must be created with a single Document
in its session history, whose address is about:blank, which is marked as being an HTML
document (page 71), and whose character encoding (page 75) is UTF-8. The Document must
have a single child html node, which itself has a single child body node. If the browsing context
(page 354) is created specifically to be immediately navigated, then that initial navigation will
have replacement enabled (page 414).
The origin (page 363) of the about:blank Document is set when the Document is created, in a
manner dependent on whether the browsing context (page 354) created is a nested browsing
context (page 355), as follows:
↪ If the new browsing context (page 354) is a nested browsing context (page 355)
The origin (page 363) of the about:blank Document is the origin (page 363) of the
active document (page 354) of the new browsing context (page 354)'s parent browsing
context (page 355) at the time of its creation.
↪ If the new browsing context (page 354) is an auxiliary browsing context (page
356)
The origin (page 363) of the about:blank Document is the origin (page 363) of the
active document (page 354) of the new browsing context (page 354)'s opener browsing
context (page 356) at the time of the new browsing context's creation.
↪ Otherwise
The origin (page 363) of the about:blank Document is a globally unique identifier
assigned when the new browsing context (page 354) is created.
5.1.1 Nested browsing contexts
Certain elements (for example, iframe elements) can instantiate further browsing contexts
(page 354). These are called nested browsing contexts. If a browsing context P has an
element in one of its Documents D that nests another browsing context C inside it, then P is said
to be the parent browsing context of C, C is said to be a child browsing context of P, and C
is said to be nested through D.
A browsing context A is said to be an ancestor of a browsing context B if there exists a browsing

context A' that is a child browsing context (page 355) of A and that is itself an ancestor of B, or if
there is a browsing context P that is a child browsing context (page 355) of A and that is the
parent browsing context (page 355) of B.
The browsing context with no parent browsing context (page 355) is the top-level browsing
context of all the browsing contexts nested (page 355) within it (either directly or indirectly
through other nested browsing contexts).
The transitive closure of parent browsing contexts (page 355) for a nested browsing context
(page 355) gives the list of ancestor browsing contexts.
A Document is said to be fully active when it is the active document (page 354) of its browsing
context (page 354), and either its browsing context is a top-level browsing context (page 355),
355
or the Document through which (page 355) that browsing context is nested (page 355) is itself
fully active (page 355).
Because they are nested through an element, child browsing contexts (page 355) are always
tied to a specific Document in their parent browsing context (page 355). User agents must not
allow the user to interact with child browsing contexts (page 355) of elements that are in
Documents that are not themselves fully active (page 355).
A nested browsing context (page 355) can have a seamless browsing context flag (page 200)
set, if it is embedded through an iframe element with a seamless attribute.
5.1.2 Auxiliary browsing contexts
It is possible to create new browsing contexts that are related to a top level browsing context
without being nested through an element. Such browsing contexts are called auxiliary
browsing contexts. Auxiliary browsing contexts are always top-level browsing contexts (page
355).
An auxiliary browsing context (page 356) has an opener browsing context, which is the
browsing context (page 354) from which the auxiliary browsing context (page 356) was created,
and it has a furthest ancestor browsing context, which is the top-level browsing context
(page 355) of the opener browsing context (page 356) when the auxiliary browsing context
(page 356) was created.
The opener DOM attribute on the Window object must return the Window object of the browsing
context (page 354) from which the current browsing context was created (its opener browsing
context (page 356)), if there is one and it is still available.
5.1.3 Secondary browsing contexts
User agents may support secondary browsing contexts, which are browsing contexts (page
354) that form part of the user agent's interface, apart from the main content area.
5.1.4 Security
A browsing context (page 354) A is allowed to navigate a second browsing context (page 354)
B if one of the following conditions is true:
• Either the origin (page 363) of the active document (page 354) of A is the same (page
366) as the origin (page 363) of the active document (page 354) of B, or
• The browsing context B an auxiliary browsing context (page 356) and either its opener
browsing context (page 356) is A or A is allowed to navigate (page 356) B's opener
browsing context (page 356), or
• The browsing context B is not a top-level browsing context (page 355), but there exists
an ancestor browsing context (page 355) of B whose active document (page 354) has
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the same (page 366) origin (page 363) as the active document (page 354) of A (possibly
in fact being A itself).
5.1.5 Threads
Each browsing context (page 354) is defined as having a list of zero or more directly reachable
browsing contexts. These are:
• All the browsing context (page 354)'s child browsing contexts (page 355).
• The browsing context (page 354)'s parent browsing context (page 355).
• All the browsing contexts (page 354) that have the browsing context (page 354) as their
opener browsing context (page 356).
• The browsing context (page 354)'s opener browsing context (page 356).
The transitive closure of all the browsing contexts (page 354) that are directly reachable
browsing contexts (page 357) forms a unit of related browsing contexts.
All the executable code in a unit of related browsing contexts (page 357) must execute on a
single conceptual thread. The dispatch of events fired by the user agent (e.g. in response to user
actions or network activity) and the execution of any scripts associated with timers must be
serialized so that for each unit of related browsing contexts (page 357) there is only one script
being executed at a time.
5.1.6 Browsing context names
Browsing contexts can have a browsing context name. By default, a browsing context has no
name (its name is not set).
A valid browsing context name is any string with at least one character that does not start
with a U+005F LOW LINE character. (Names starting with an underscore are reserved for special
keywords.)
A valid browsing context name or keyword is any string that is either a valid browsing
context name (page 357) or that case-insensitively matches one of: _blank, _self, _parent, or
_top.
The rules for choosing a browsing context given a browsing context name are as
follows. The rules assume that they are being applied in the context of a browsing context (page
354).
1. If the given browsing context name is the empty string or _self, then the chosen
browsing context must be the current one.
2. If the given browsing context name is _parent, then the chosen browsing context must
be the parent browsing context (page 355) of the current one, unless there isn't one, in
which case the chosen browsing context must be the current browsing context.
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3. If the given browsing context name is _top, then the chosen browsing context must be
the most top-level browsing context (page 355) of the current one.
4. If the given browsing context name is not _blank and there exists a browsing context
whose name (page 357) is the same as the given browsing context name, and the
current browsing context is allowed to navigate (page 356) that browsing context, and
the user agent determines that the two browsing contexts are related enough that it is
ok if they reach each other, then that browsing context must be the chosen one. If there
are multiple matching browsing contexts, the user agent should select one in some
arbitrary consistent manner, such as the most recently opened, most recently focused,
or more closely related.
5. Otherwise, a new browsing context is being requested, and what happens depends on
the user agent's configuration and/or abilities:
If the current browsing context has the sandboxed navigation browsing

context flag (page 198) set.
The user agent may offer to create a new top-level browsing context (page 355) or
reuse an existing top-level browsing context (page 355). If the user picks one of
those options, then the designated browsing context must be the chosen one (the
browsing context's name isn't set to the given browsing context name). Otherwise
(if the user agent doesn't offer the option to the user, or if the user declines to allow
a browsing context to be used) there must not be a chosen browsing context.
If the user agent has been configured such that in this instance it will create a
new browsing context
A new auxiliary browsing context (page 356) must be created, with the opener
browsing context (page 356) being the current one. If the given browsing context
name is not _blank, then the new auxiliary browsing context's name must be the
given browsing context name (otherwise, it has no name). The chosen browsing
context must be this new browsing context. If it is immediately navigated (page
410), then the navigation will be done with replacement enabled (page 414).
If the user agent has been configured such that in this instance it will reuse
the current browsing context
The chosen browsing context is the current browsing context.
If the user agent has been configured such that in this instance it will not find
a browsing context
There must not be a chosen browsing context.
User agent implementors are encouraged to provide a way for users to configure the
user agent to always reuse the current browsing context.
5.2 The default view
The AbstractView object of default views (page 354) must also implement the Window object.
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[NoInterfaceObject] interface Window {
// the current browsing context
readonly attribute Window window;
readonly attribute Window self;
[PutForwards=href] readonly attribute Location location;
readonly attribute History history;
readonly attribute UndoManager undoManager;
Selection getSelection();
// the user agent

readonly attribute ClientInformation navigator;
readonly attribute Storage sessionStorage;
readonly attribute Storage localStorage;
Database openDatabase(in DOMString name, in DOMString version, in
DOMString displayName, in unsigned long estimatedSize);
// user prompts
void alert(in DOMString message);
boolean confirm(in DOMString message);
DOMString prompt(in DOMString message);
DOMString prompt(in DOMString message, in DOMString default);
void print();
any showModalDialog(in DOMString url);
any showModalDialog(in DOMString url, in any arguments);
void showNotification(in DOMString title, in DOMString subtitle, in
DOMString description);
void showNotification(in DOMString title, in DOMString subtitle, in
DOMString description, in VoidCallback onclick);
// other browsing contexts

readonly attribute Window frames;
[IndexGetter] Window XXX4(in unsigned long index);
readonly attribute Window opener;
Window open();
Window open(in DOMString url);
Window open(in DOMString url, in DOMString target);
Window open(in DOMString url, in DOMString target, in DOMString
features);
Window open(in DOMString url, in DOMString target, in DOMString
features, in DOMString replace);
// cross-document messaging
void postMessage(in DOMString message, in DOMString targetOrigin);
// event handler DOM attributes
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attribute EventListener onabort;
attribute EventListener onbeforeunload;
attribute EventListener onblur;
attribute EventListener onchange;
attribute EventListener onclick;
attribute EventListener oncontextmenu;
attribute EventListener ondblclick;
attribute EventListener ondrag;
attribute EventListener ondragend;
attribute EventListener ondragenter;
attribute EventListener ondragleave;
attribute EventListener ondragover;
attribute EventListener ondragstart;
attribute EventListener ondrop;
attribute EventListener onfocus;
attribute EventListener onkeydown;
attribute EventListener onkeypress;
attribute EventListener onkeyup;
attribute EventListener onload;
attribute EventListener onmessage;
attribute EventListener onmousedown;
attribute EventListener onmousemove;
attribute EventListener onmouseout;
attribute EventListener onmouseover;
attribute EventListener onmouseup;
attribute EventListener onmousewheel;
attribute EventListener onresize;
attribute EventListener onscroll;
attribute EventListener onselect;
attribute EventListener onstorage;
attribute EventListener onsubmit;
attribute EventListener onunload;
};
The window, frames, and self DOM attributes must all return the Window object itself.
The Window object also provides the scope for script execution. Each Document in a browsing
context (page 354) has an associated list of added properties which, when a document is
active (page 354), are available on the Document's default view (page 354) Window object. A
Document object's list of added properties (page 360) must be empty when the Document object
is created.
Objects implementing the Window interface must also implement the EventTarget interface.
Note: Window objects also have an implicit [[Get]] method which returns nested
browsing contexts.
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5.2.1 Security
User agents must raise a security exception (page 369) whenever any of the members of a
Window object are accessed by scripts whose effective script origin (page 363) is not the same
as the Window object's browsing context (page 354)'s active document (page 354)'s effective
script origin (page 363), with the following exceptions:
• The location object
• The postMessage() method
• The frames attribute
• The XXX4 method
User agents must not allow scripts to override the location object's setter.
5.2.2 Constructors
All Window objects must provide the following constructors:
Audio()
Audio(src)
When invoked as constructors, these must return a new HTMLAudioElement object (a new
audio element). If the src argument is present, the object created must have its src content
attribute set to the provided value, and the user agent must invoke the load() method on
the object before returning.
Image()
Image(in unsigned long w)
Image(in unsigned long w, in unsigned long h)

When invoked as constructors, these must return a new HTMLImageElement object (a new
img element). If the h argument is present, the new object's height content attribute must
be set to h. If the w argument is present, the new object's width content attribute must be
set to w.
Option()
Option(in DOMString name)
Option(in DOMString name, in DOMString value)

When invoked as constructors, these must return a new HTMLOptionElement object (a new
option element). need to define argument processing
And when constructors are invoked but without using the constructor syntax...?
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5.2.3 APIs for creating and navigating browsing contexts by name
The open() method on Window objects provides a mechanism for navigating (page 410) an
existing browsing context (page 354) or opening and navigating an auxiliary browsing context
(page 356).
The method has four arguments, though they are all optional.
The first argument, url, must be a valid URL (page 29) for a page to load in the browsing context.
If no arguments are provided, then the url argument defaults to "about:blank". The argument
must be resolved (page 31) to an absolute URL (page 33) (or an error) when the method is
invoked.
The second argument, target, specifies the name (page 357) of the browsing context that is to
be navigated. It must be a valid browsing context name or keyword (page 357). If fewer than
two arguments are provided, then the name argument defaults to the value "_blank".
The third argument, features, has no effect and is supported for historical reasons only.
The fourth argument, replace, specifies whether or not the new page will replace (page 414) the
page currently loaded in the browsing context, when target identifies an existing browsing
context (as opposed to leaving the current page in the browsing context's session history (page
404)). When three or fewer arguments are provided, replace defaults to false.
When the method is invoked, the user agent must first select a browsing context (page 354) to
navigate by applying the rules for choosing a browsing context given a browsing context name
(page 357) using the target argument as the name and the browsing context (page 354) of the
script as the context in which the algorithm is executed, unless the user has indicated a
preference, in which case the browsing context to navigate may instead be the one indicated by
the user.
For example, suppose there is a user agent that supports control-clicking a link to open it in
a new tab. If a user clicks in that user agent on an element whose onclick handler uses the
window.open() API to open a page in an iframe, but, while doing so, holds the control key
down, the user agent could override the selection of the target browsing context to instead
target a new tab.
Then, the user agent must navigate (page 410) the selected browsing context (page 354) to the
absolute URL (page 33) (or error) obtained from resolving (page 31) url. If the replace is true,
then replacement must be enabled (page 414); otherwise, it must not be enabled unless the
browsing context (page 354) was just created as part of the the rules for choosing a browsing
context given a browsing context name (page 357). The navigation must be done with the script
browsing context (page 368) of the script that invoked the method as the source browsing
context (page 410).
The method must return the Window object of the default view of the browsing context (page
354) that was navigated, or null if no browsing context was navigated.
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The name attribute of the Window object must, on getting, return the current name of the
browsing context (page 354), and, on setting, set the name of the browsing context (page 354)
to the new value.
Note: The name gets reset (page 419) when the browsing context is navigated
to another domain.
5.2.4 Accessing other browsing contexts
The length DOM attribute on the Window interface must return the number of child browsing
contexts (page 355) of the active (page 354) Document.
The XXX4(index) method must return the indexth child browsing context (page 355) of the
active (page 354) Document, sorted in document order of the elements nesting those browsing
contexts.
5.3 Origin
The origin of a resource and the effective script origin of a resource are both either opaque
identifiers or tuples consisting of a scheme component, a host component, a port component,
and optionally extra data.
Note: The extra data could include the certificate of the site when using
encrypted connections, to ensure that if the site's secure certificate changes,
the origin is considered to change as well.
These characteristics are defined as follows:
For URLs
The origin (page 363) and effective script origin (page 363) of the URL (page 29) is
whatever is returned by the following algorithm:
1. Let url be the URL (page 29) for which the origin (page 363) is being determined.
2. Parse (page 29) url.
3. If url does not use a server-based naming authority, or if parsing url failed, or if url is
not an absolute URL (page 33), then return a new globally unique identifier.
4. Let scheme be the <scheme> (page 30) component of the URI, converted to
lowercase.
5. If the UA doesn't support the protocol given by scheme, then return a new globally
unique identifier.
6. If scheme is "file", then the user agent may return a UA-specific value.
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7. Let host be the <host> (page 30) component of url.
8. Apply the IDNA ToASCII algorithm to host, with both the AllowUnassigned and
UseSTD3ASCIIRules flags set. Let host be the result of the ToASCII algorithm.
If ToASCII fails to convert one of the components of the string, e.g. because it is too
long or because it contains invalid characters, then return a new globally unique
identifier. [RFC3490]
9. Let host be the result of converting host to lowercase.
10. If there is no <port> (page 30) component, then let port be the default port for the
protocol given by scheme. Otherwise, let port be the <port> (page 30) component
of url.
11. Return the tuple (scheme, host, port).
In addition, if the URL (page 29) is in fact associated with a Document object that was
created by parsing the resource obtained from fetching URL (page 29), and this was done
over a secure connection, then the server's secure certificate may be added to the origin as
additional data.
For scripts
The origin (page 363) and effective script origin (page 363) of a script are determined from
another resource, called the owner:
↪ If a script is in a script element

The owner is the Document to which the script element belongs.
↪ If a script is in an event handler content attribute (page 371)
The owner is the Document to which the attribute node belongs.
↪ If a script is a function or other code reference created by another script
The owner is the script that created it.
↪ If a script is a javascript: URL (page 369) that was returned as the location of
an HTTP redirect (or equivalent in other protocols)
The owner is the URL (page 29) that redirected to the javascript: URL (page 369).
↪ If a script is a javascript: URL (page 369) in an attribute
The owner is the Document of the element on which the attribute is found.
↪ If a script is a javascript: URL (page 369) in a style sheet
The owner is the URL (page 29) of the style sheet.
↪ If a script is a javascript: URL (page 369) to which a browsing context (page
354) is being navigated (page 410), the URL having been provided by the user
(e.g. by using a bookmarklet)
The owner is the Document of the browsing context (page 354)'s active document
(page 354).
354) is being navigated (page 410), the URL having been declared in markup
The owner is the Document of the element (e.g. an a or area element) that declared
the URL.
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354) is being navigated (page 410), the URL having been provided by script
The owner is the script that provided the URL.
The origin (page 363) of the script is then equal to the origin (page 363) of the owner, and
the effective script origin (page 363) of the script is equal to the effective script origin (page
363) of the owner.
For Document objects and images

↪ If a Document is in a browsing context (page 354) whose sandboxed origin
browsing context flag (page 199) is set
The origin (page 363) is a globally unique identifier assigned when the Document is
created.
↪ If a Document or image was returned by the XMLHttpRequest API
The origin (page 363) and effective script origin (page 363) are equal to the origin
(page 363) and effective script origin (page 363) of the Document object that was
the active document (page 354) of the browsing context of the Window object from
which the XMLHttpRequest constructor was invoked. (That is, they track the
Document to which the XMLHttpRequest object's Document pointer pointed when it
was created.) [XHR]
↪ If a Document or image was generated from a javascript: URL (page 369)
The origin (page 363) is equal to the origin (page 363) of the script of that
javascript: URL (page 369).
↪ If a Document or image was served over the network and has an address that
uses a URL scheme with a server-based naming authority
The origin (page 363) is the origin (page 363) of the address of the Document or
image.
↪ If a Document or image was generated from a data: URL that was returned as
the location of an HTTP redirect (or equivalent in other protocols)
The origin (page 363) is the origin (page 363) of the URL (page 29) that redirected
to the data: URL.
↪ If a Document or image was generated from a data: URL found in another
Document or in a script
The origin (page 363) is the origin (page 363) of the Document or script in which the
data: URL was found.
↪ If a Document has the address "about:blank"
The origin (page 363) of the Document is the origin it was assigned when its
browsing context was created (page 355).
↪ If a Document or image was obtained in some other manner (e.g. a data: URL
typed in by the user, a Document created using the createDocument() API, a
data: URL returned as the location of an HTTP redirect, etc)
The origin (page 363) is a globally unique identifier assigned when the Document or
image is created.
When a Document is created, unless stated otherwise above, its effective script origin (page
363) is initialized to the origin (page 363) of the Document. However, the document.domain
attribute can be used to change it.
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The Unicode serialization of an origin is the string obtained by applying the following
algorithm to the given origin (page 363):
1. If the origin (page 363) in question is not a scheme/host/port tuple, then return the
empty string and abort these steps.
2. Otherwise, let result be the scheme part of the origin (page 363) tuple.
3. Append the string "://" to result.
4. Apply the IDNA ToUnicode algorithm to each component of the host part of the origin
(page 363) tuple, and append the results — each component, in the same order,
separated by U+002E FULL STOP characters (".") — to result.
5. If the port part of the origin (page 363) tuple gives a port that is different from the
default port for the protocol given by the scheme part of the origin (page 363) tuple,
then append a U+003A COLON character (":") and the given port, in base ten, to result.
6. Return result.
The ASCII serialization of an origin is the string obtained by applying the following algorithm
to the given origin (page 363):
1. If the origin (page 363) in question is not a scheme/host/port tuple, then return the
empty string and abort these steps.
2. Otherwise, let result be the scheme part of the origin (page 363) tuple.
3. Append the string "://" to result.
4. Apply the IDNA ToASCII algorithm the host part of the origin (page 363) tuple, with both
the AllowUnassigned and UseSTD3ASCIIRules flags set, and append the results result.
or because it contains invalid characters, then return the empty string and abort these
steps. [RFC3490]
5. If the port part of the origin (page 363) tuple gives a port that is different from the
default port for the protocol given by the scheme part of the origin (page 363) tuple,
then append a U+003A COLON character (":") and the given port, in base ten, to result.
6. Return result.
Two origins (page 363) are said to be the same origin if the following algorithm returns true:
1. Let A be the first origin (page 363) being compared, and B be the second origin (page
363) being compared.
2. If A and B are both opaque identifiers, and their value is equal, then return true.
3. Otherwise, if either A or B or both are opaque identifiers, return false.
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4. If A and B have scheme components that are not identical, return false.
5. If A and B have host components that are not identical, return false.
6. If A and B have port components that are not identical, return false.
7. If either A or B have additional data, but that data is not identical for both, return false.
8. Return true.
5.3.1 Relaxing the same-origin restriction
The domain attribute on Document objects must be initialized to the document's domain (page
367), if it has one, and the empty string otherwise. On getting, the attribute must return its
current value, unless the document was created by XMLHttpRequest, in which case it must
throw an INVALID_ACCESS_ERR exception. On setting, the user agent must run the following
algorithm:
1. If the document was created by XMLHttpRequest, throw an INVALID_ACCESS_ERR

exception and abort these steps.
2. Apply the IDNA ToASCII algorithm to the new value, with both the AllowUnassigned and
UseSTD3ASCIIRules flags set. Let new value be the result of the ToASCII algorithm.
or because it contains invalid characters, then throw a security exception (page 369)
and abort these steps. [RFC3490]
3. If new value is not exactly equal to the current value of the document.domain attribute,
then run these substeps:
1. If the current value is an IP address, throw a security exception (page 369) and
abort these steps.
2. If new value, prefixed by a U+002E FULL STOP ("."), does not exactly match the
end of the current value, throw a security exception (page 369) and abort these
steps.
4. Set the attribute's value to new value.
5. Set the host part of the effective script origin (page 363) tuple of the Document to new
value.
6. Set the port part of the effective script origin (page 363) tuple of the Document to
"manual override" (a value that, for the purposes of comparing origins (page 366), is
identical to "manual override" but not identical to any other value).
The domain of a Document is the host part of the document's origin (page 363), if that is a
scheme/host/port tuple. If it isn't, then the document does not have a domain.
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Note: The domain attribute is used to enable pages on different hosts of a
domain to access each others' DOMs.
5.4 Scripting
Various mechanisms can cause author-provided executable code to run in the context of a
document. These mechanisms include, but are probably not limited to:
• Processing of script elements.
• Processing of inline javascript: URLs (e.g. the src attribute of img elements, or an
@import rule in a CSS style element block).
• Event handlers, whether registered through the DOM using addEventListener(), by

explicit event handler content attributes (page 371), by event handler DOM attributes
(page 371), or otherwise.
• Processing of technologies like XBL or SVG that have their own scripting features.
When a script is created, it is associated with a script execution context (page 368), a script
browsing context (page 368), and a script document context (page 369).
5.4.1 Script execution contexts
The script execution context of a script is defined when that script is created. It is either a
Window object or an empty object.
When the script execution context (page 368) of a script is an empty object, it can't do anything
that interacts with the environment.
A script execution context (page 368) always has an associated browsing context (page 354),
known as the script browsing context. If the script execution context (page 368) is a Window
object, then that object's browsing context (page 354) is it. Otherwise, the script execution
context (page 368) is associated explicitly with a browsing context (page 354) when it is
created.
It is said that scripting is disabled in a script execution context (page 368) when any of the
following conditions are true:
• The user agent does not support scripting.
• The user has disabled scripting for this script execution context (page 368). (User agents
may provide users with the option to disable scripting globally, on a per-origin basis, or
in other ways down to the granularity of individual script execution contexts (page 368).)
• The script execution context (page 368)'s associated browsing context (page 354)'s
active document (page 354) has designMode enabled.
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• The script execution context (page 368)'s associated browsing context (page 354) has
the sandboxed scripts browsing context flag (page 199) set.
A node is said to be without script if either the Document object of the node (the node itself, if
it is itself a Document object) does not have an associated browsing context (page 354), or
scripting is disabled (page 368) in that browsing context (page 354).
A node is said to be with script if it is not without script (page 369).
If you can find a better pair of terms than "with script" and "without script" let me know. The
only things I can find that are less confusing are also way, way longer.
When a script is to be executed in a script execution context (page 368) in which scripting is
disabled (page 368), the script must do nothing and return nothing (a void return value).
Note: Thus, for instance, enabling designMode will disable any event handler
attributes, event listeners, timeouts, etc, that were set by scripts in the
document.
Every script whose script execution context (page 368) is a Window object is also associated with
a Document object, known as its script document context. It is used to resolve (page 31)
URLs. The document is assigned when the script is created, as with the script browsing context
(page 368).
5.4.2 Security exceptions
Define security exception.
5.4.3 The javascript: protocol
A URL using the javascript: protocol must, if and when dereferenced, be evaluated by
executing the script obtained using the content retrieval operation defined for javascript:
URLs. [JSURL]
When a browsing context (page 354) is navigated (page 410) to a javascript: URL, and the
active document (page 354) of that browsing context has the same origin (page 366) as the
script given by that URL, the script execution context (page 368) must be the Window object of
the browsing context (page 354) being navigated, and the script document context (page 369)
must be that active document (page 354).
When a browsing context is navigated (page 410) to a javascript: URL, and the active
document (page 354) of that browsing context has an origin (page 363) that is not the same
(page 366) as that of the script given by the URL, the script execution context (page 368) must
be an empty object, and the script browsing context (page 368) must be the browsing context
(page 354) being navigated (page 410).
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Otherwise, the script execution context (page 368) must be an empty object, and the script
execution context (page 368)'s associated browsing context (page 354) must be the browsing
context (page 354) of the Document object of the element, attribute, or style sheet from which
the javascript: URL was reached.
If the result of executing the script is void (there is no return value), then the URL must be
treated in a manner equivalent to an HTTP resource with an HTTP 204 No Content response.
Otherwise, the URL must be treated in a manner equivalent to an HTTP resource with a 200 OK
response whose Content-Type metadata (page 63) is text/html and whose response body is the
return value converted to a string value.
Note: Certain contexts, in particular img elements, ignore the Content-Type

metadata (page 63).
So for example a javascript: URL for a src attribute of an img element would be
evaluated in the context of an empty object as soon as the attribute is set; it would then be
sniffed to determine the image type and decoded as an image.
A javascript: URL in an href attribute of an a element would only be evaluated when the
link was followed (page 437).
The src attribute of an iframe element would be evaluated in the context of the iframe's
own browsing context (page 354); once evaluated, its return value (if it was not void) would
replace that browsing context (page 354)'s document, thus changing the variables visible in
that browsing context (page 354).
Note: The rules for handling script execution in a script execution context
(page 368) include making the script not execute (and just return void) in
certain cases, e.g. in a sandbox or when the user has disabled scripting
altogether.
5.4.4 Events
We need to define how to handle events that are to be fired on a Document that is no longer
the active document of its browsing context, and for Documents that have no browsing
context. Do the events fire? Do the handlers in that document not fire? Do we just define
scripting to be disabled when the document isn't active, with events still running as is? See
also the script element section, which says scripts don't run when the document isn't active.
5.4.4.1. Event handler attributes
HTML elements (page 27) can have event handler attributes specified. These act as bubbling
event listeners for the element on which they are specified.
370
Each event handler attribute has two parts, an event handler content attribute (page 371) and
an event handler DOM attribute (page 371). Event handler attributes must initially be set to null.
When their value changes (through the changing of their event handler content attribute or their
event handler DOM attribute), they will either be null, or have an EventListener object
assigned to them.
Objects other than Element objects, in particular Window, only have event handler DOM attribute
(page 371) (since they have no content attributes).
Event handler content attributes, when specified, must contain valid ECMAScript code
matching the ECMAScript FunctionBody production. [ECMA262]
When an event handler content attribute is set, its new value must be interpreted as the body of
an anonymous function with a single argument called event, with the new function's scope chain
being linked from the activation object of the handler, to the element, to the element's form
element if it is a form control, to the Document object, to the Window object of the browsing
context (page 354) of that Document. The function's this parameter must be the Element object
representing the element. The resulting function must then be set as the value of the
corresponding event handler attribute, and the new value must be set as the value of the
content attribute. If the given function body fails to compile, then the corresponding event
handler attribute must be set to null instead (the content attribute must still be updated to the
new value, though).
Note: See ECMA262 Edition 3, sections 10.1.6 and 10.2.3, for more details on
activation objects. [ECMA262]
The script execution context (page 368) of the event handler must be the Window object at the
end of the scope chain. The script document context (page 369) of the event handler must be
the Document object that owns the event handler content attribute that was set.
How do we allow non-JS event handlers?
Event handler DOM attributes, on setting, must set the corresponding event handler
attribute to their new value, and on getting, must return whatever the current value of the
corresponding event handler attribute is (possibly null).
The following are the event handler attributes that must be supported by all HTML elements
(page 27), as both content attributes and DOM attributes, and on Window objects, as DOM
attributes:
onabort
Must be invoked whenever an abort event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
onbeforeunload
Must be invoked whenever a beforeunload event is targeted at or bubbles through the
element.
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onblur
Must be invoked whenever a blur event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
onchange
Must be invoked whenever a change event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
onclick
Must be invoked whenever a click event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
oncontextmenu
Must be invoked whenever a contextmenu event is targeted at or bubbles through the
element.
ondblclick
Must be invoked whenever a dblclick event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
ondrag
Must be invoked whenever a drag event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
ondragend
Must be invoked whenever a dragend event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
ondragenter
Must be invoked whenever a dragenter event is targeted at or bubbles through the
element.
ondragleave
Must be invoked whenever a dragleave event is targeted at or bubbles through the
element.
ondragover
Must be invoked whenever a dragover event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
ondragstart
Must be invoked whenever a dragstart event is targeted at or bubbles through the
element.
ondrop
Must be invoked whenever a drop event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
onerror
Must be invoked whenever an error event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
Note: The onerror handler is also used for reporting script errors (page
375).
onfocus
Must be invoked whenever a focus event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
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onkeydown
Must be invoked whenever a keydown event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
onkeypress
Must be invoked whenever a keypress event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
onkeyup
Must be invoked whenever a keyup event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
onload
Must be invoked whenever a load event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
onmessage
Must be invoked whenever a message event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
onmousedown
Must be invoked whenever a mousedown event is targeted at or bubbles through the
element.
onmousemove
Must be invoked whenever a mousemove event is targeted at or bubbles through the
element.
onmouseout
Must be invoked whenever a mouseout event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
onmouseover
Must be invoked whenever a mouseover event is targeted at or bubbles through the
element.
onmouseup
Must be invoked whenever a mouseup event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
onmousewheel
Must be invoked whenever a mousewheel event is targeted at or bubbles through the
element.
onresize
Must be invoked whenever a resize event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
onscroll
Must be invoked whenever a scroll event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
onselect
Must be invoked whenever a select event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
onstorage
Must be invoked whenever a storage event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
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onsubmit
Must be invoked whenever a submit event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
onunload
Must be invoked whenever an unload event is targeted at or bubbles through the element.
When an event handler attribute is invoked, its argument must be set to the Event object of the
event in question. If the function returns the exact boolean value false, the event's
preventDefault() method must then invoked. Exception: for historical reasons, for the HTML
mouseover event, the preventDefault() method must be called when the function returns true
instead.
All event handler attributes on an element, whether set to null or to a function, must be
registered as event listeners on the element, as if the addEventListenerNS() method on the
Element object's EventTarget interface had been invoked when the element was created, with
the event type (type argument) equal to the type described for the event handler attribute in
the list above, the namespace (namespaceURI argument) set to null, the listener set to be a
target and bubbling phase listener (useCapture argument set to false), the event group set to
the default group (evtGroup argument set to null), and the event listener itself (listener
argument) set to do nothing while the event handler attribute is null, and set to invoke the
function associated with the event handler attribute otherwise. (The listener argument is
emphatically not the event handler attribute itself.)
5.4.4.2. Event firing
maybe this should be moved higher up (terminology? conformance? DOM?) Also, the whole
terminology thing should be changed so that we don't define any specific events here, we
only define 'simple event', 'progress event', 'mouse event', 'key event', and the like, and have
the actual dispatch use those generic terms when firing events.
Certain operations and methods are defined as firing events on elements. For example, the
click() method on the HTMLElement interface is defined as firing a click event on the
element. [DOM3EVENTS]
Firing a click event means that a click event with no namespace, which bubbles and is
cancelable, and which uses the MouseEvent interface, must be dispatched at the given element.
The event object must have its screenX, screenY, clientX, clientY, and button attributes set
to 0, its ctrlKey, shiftKey, altKey, and metaKey attributes set according to the current state of
the key input device, if any (false for any keys that are not available), its detail attribute set to
1, and its relatedTarget attribute set to null. The getModifierState() method on the object
must return values appropriately describing the state of the key input device at the time the
event is created.
Firing a change event means that a change event with no namespace, which bubbles but is not
cancelable, and which uses the Event interface, must be dispatched at the given element. The
event object must have its detail attribute set to 0.
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Firing a contextmenu event means that a contextmenu event with no namespace, which
bubbles and is cancelable, and which uses the Event interface, must be dispatched at the given
element. The event object must have its detail attribute set to 0.
Firing a simple event called e means that an event with the name e, with no namespace,
which does not bubble but is cancelable (unless otherwise stated), and which uses the Event
interface, must be dispatched at the given element.
Firing a show event means firing a simple event called show (page 375). Actually this should
fire an event that has modifier information (shift/ctrl etc), as well as having a pointer to the node
on which the menu was fired, and with which the menu was associated (which could be an
ancestor of the former).
Firing a load event means firing a simple event called load (page 375). Firing an error
event means firing a simple event called error (page 375).
Firing a progress event called e means something that hasn't yet been defined, in the
[PROGRESS] spec.
The default action of these event is to do nothing unless otherwise stated.
If you dispatch a custom "click" event at an element that would normally have default actions,
should they get triggered? If so, we need to go through the entire spec and make sure that
any default actions are defined in terms of any event of the right type on that element, not
those that are dispatched in expected ways.
5.4.4.3. Events and the Window object
When an event is dispatched at a DOM node in a Document in a browsing context (page 354), if
the event is not a load event, the user agent must also dispatch the event to the Window, as
follows:
1. In the capture phase, the event must be dispatched to the Window object before being
dispatched to any of the nodes.
2. In the bubble phase, the event must be dispatched to the Window object at the end of
the phase, unless bubbling has been prevented.
5.4.4.4. Runtime script errors
This section only applies to user agents that support scripting in general and ECMAScript in
particular.
Whenever a runtime script error occurs in one of the scripts associated with the document, the
value of the onerror event handler DOM attribute of the Window object must be processed, as
follows:
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↪ If the value is a function
The function referenced by the onerror attribute must be invoked with three
arguments, before notifying the user of the error.
The three arguments passed to the function are all DOMStrings; the first must give the
message that the UA is considering reporting, the second must give the absolute URL
(page 33) of the resource in which the error occurred, and the third must give the line
number in that resource on which the error occurred.
If the function returns false, then the error should not be reported to the user.
Otherwise, if the function returns another value (or does not return at all), the error
should be reported to the user.
Any exceptions thrown or errors caused by this function must be reported to the user
immediately after the error that the function was called for, without calling the function
again.
↪ If the value is null

The error should not reported to the user.
↪ If the value is anything else

The error should be reported to the user.
The initial value of onerror must be undefined.
5.5 User prompts
5.5.1 Simple dialogs
The alert(message) method, when invoked, must show the given message to the user. The
user agent may make the method wait for the user to acknowledge the message before
returning; if so, the user agent must pause (page 29) while the method is waiting.
The confirm(message) method, when invoked, must show the given message to the user, and
ask the user to respond with a positive or negative response. The user agent must then pause
(page 29) as the method waits for the user's response. If the user responds positively, the
method must return true, and if the user responds negatively, the method must return false.
The prompt(message, default) method, when invoked, must show the given message to the
user, and ask the user to either respond with a string value or abort. The user agent must then
pause (page 29) as the method waits for the user's response. The second argument is optional.
If the second argument (default) is present, then the response must be defaulted to the value
given by default. If the user aborts, then the method must return null; otherwise, the method
must return the string that the user responded with.
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5.5.2 Printing
The print() method, when invoked, must run the printing steps (page 377).
User agents should also run the printing steps (page 377) whenever the user attempts to obtain
a physical form (e.g. printed copy), or the representation of a physical form (e.g. PDF copy), of a
document.
The printing steps are as follows:
1. The user agent may display a message to the user and/or may abort these steps.
For instance, a kiosk browser could silently ignore any invocations of the print()
method.
For instance, a browser on a mobile device could detect that there are no printers in
the vicinity and display a message saying so before continuing to offer a "save to
PDF" option.
2. The user agent must fire a simple event (page 375) called beforeprint at the Window
object of the browsing context of the Document that is being printed, as well as any
nested browsing contexts (page 355) in it.
The beforeprint event can be used to annotate the printed copy, for instance
adding the time at which the document was printed.
3. The user agent should offer the user the opportunity to obtain a physical form (page
608) (or the representation of a physical form) of the document. The user agent may
wait for the user to either accept or decline before returning; if so, the user agent must
pause (page 29) while the method is waiting. Even if the user agent doesn't wait at this
point, the user agent must use the state of the relevant documents as they are at this
point in the algorithm if and when it eventually creates the alternate form.
4. The user agent must fire a simple event (page 375) called afterprint at the Window
object of the browsing context of the Document that is being printed, as well as any
nested browsing contexts (page 355) in it.
The afterprint event can be used to revert annotations added in the earlier event,
as well as showing post-printing UI. For instance, if a page is walking the user
through the steps of applying for a home loan, the script could automatically
advance to the next step after having printed a form or other.
5.5.3 Dialogs implemented using separate documents
The showModalDialog(url, arguments) method, when invoked, must cause the user agent to
run the following steps:
1. If the user agent is configured such that this invocation of showModalDialog() is

somehow disabled, then the method returns the empty string; abort these steps.
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Note: User agents are expected to disable this method in certain cases
to avoid user annoyance. For instance, a user agent could require that
a site be white-listed before enabling this method, or the user agent
could be configured to only allow one modal dialog at a time.
2. Let the list of background browsing contexts be a list of all the browsing contexts that:
• are part of the same unit of related browsing contexts (page 357) as the
browsing context of the Window object on which the showModalDialog() method
was called, and that
• have an active document (page 354) whose origin (page 363) is the same (page
366) as the origin (page 363) of the script that called the showModalDialog()
method at the time the method was called,
...as well as any browsing contexts that are nested inside any of the browsing contexts
matching those conditions.
3. Disable the user interface for all the browsing contexts in the list of background
browsing contexts. This should prevent the user from navigating those browsing
contexts, causing events to to be sent to those browsing context, or editing any content
in those browsing contexts. However, it does not prevent those browsing contexts from
receiving events from sources other than the user, from running scripts, from running
animations, and so forth.
4. Create a new auxiliary browsing context (page 356), with the opener browsing context
(page 356) being the browsing context of the Window object on which the
showModalDialog() method was called. The new auxiliary browsing context has no
name.
Note: This browsing context implements the ModalWindow interface.
5. Let the dialog arguments (page 379) of the new browsing context be set to the value of
arguments.
6. Let the dialog arguments' origin (page 379) be the origin (page 363) of the script that
called the showModalDialog() method.
7. Navigate (page 410) the new browsing context to url, with replacement enabled (page
414), and with the script browsing context (page 368) of the script that invoked the
method as the source browsing context (page 410).
8. Wait for the browsing context to be closed. (The user agent must allow the user to
indicate that the browsing context is to be closed.)
9. Reenable the user interface for all the browsing contexts in the list of background
browsing contexts.
10. Return the auxiliary browsing context (page 356)'s return value (page 379).
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Browsing contexts created by the above algorithm must implement the ModalWindow interface:
[XXX] interface ModalWindow {

readonly attribute any dialogArguments;
attribute DOMString returnValue;
};
Such browsing contexts have associated dialog arguments, which are stored along with the
dialog arguments' origin. These values are set by the showModalDialog() method in the
algorithm above, when the browsing context is created, based on the arguments provided to the
method.
The dialogArguments DOM attribute, on getting, must check whether its browsing context's
active document (page 354)'s origin (page 363) is the same (page 366) as the dialog arguments'
origin (page 379). If it is, then the browsing context's dialog arguments (page 379) must be
returned unchanged. Otherwise, if the dialog arguments (page 379) are an object, then the
empty string must be returned, and if the dialog arguments (page 379) are not an object, then
the stringification of the dialog arguments (page 379) must be returned.
These browsing contexts also have an associated return value. The return value (page 379) of
a browsing context must be initialized to the empty string when the browsing context is created.
The returnValue DOM attribute, on getting, must return the return value (page 379) of its
browsing context, and on setting, must set the return value (page 379) to the given new value.
5.5.4 Notifications
Notifications are short, transient messages that bring the user's attention to new information, or
remind the user of scheduled events.
Since notifications can be annoying if abused, this specification defines a mechanism that
scopes notifications to a site's existing rendering area unless the user explicitly indicates that
the site can be trusted.
To this end, each origin (page 363) can be flagged as being a trusted notification source. By
default origins should not be flagged as such, but user agents may allow users to whitelist
origins or groups of origins as being trusted notification sources (page 379). Only origins flagged
as trusted in this way are allowed to show notification UI outside of their tab.
For example, a user agent could allow a user to mark all subdomains and ports of
example.org as trusted notification sources. Then, mail.example.org and
calendar.example.org would both be able to show notifications, without the user having to
flag them individually.
The showNotification(title, subtitle, description, onclick) method, when invoked,

must cause the user agent to show a notification.
If the method was invoked from a script whose script browsing context (page 368) has the
sandboxed annoyances browsing context flag (page 199) set, then the notification must be
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shown within that browsing context (page 354). The notification is said to be a sandboxed
notification.
Otherwise, if the origin (page 363) of the script browsing context (page 368) of the script that
invoked the method is not flagged as being a trusted notification source (page 379), then the
notification should be rendered within the top-level browsing context (page 355) of the script
browsing context (page 368) of the script that invoked the method. The notification is said to be
a normal notification. User agents should provide a way to set the origin's trusted notification
source (page 379) flag from the notification, so that the user can benefit from notifications even
when the user agent is not the active application.
Otherwise, the origin (page 363) is flagged as a trusted notification source (page 379), and the
notification should be shown using the platform conventions for system-wide notifications. The
notification is said to be a trusted notification. User agents may provide a way to unset the
origin's trusted notification source (page 379) flag from within the notification, so as to allow
users to easily disable notifications from sites that abuse the privilege.
For example, if a site contains a gadget of a mail application in a sandboxed iframe and
that frame triggers a notification upon the receipt of a new e-mail message, that notification
would be displayed on top of the gadget only.
However, if the user then goes to the main site of that mail application, the notification
would be displayed over the entire rendering area of the tab for the site.
The notification, in this case, would have a button on it to let the user indicate that he trusts
the site. If the user clicked this button, the next notification would use the system-wide
notification system, appearing even if the tab for the mail application was buried deep
inside a minimised window.
The style of notifications varies from platform to platform. On some, it is typically displayed
as a "toast" window that slides in from the bottom right corner. In others, notifications are
shown as semi-transparent white-on-grey overlays centered over the screen. Other schemes
could include simulated ticker tapes, and speech-synthesis playback.
When a normal notification (page 380) (but not a sandboxed notification (page 380)) is shown,
the user agent may bring the user's attention to the top-level browsing context (page 355) of
the script browsing context (page 368) of the script that invoked the method, if that would be
useful; but user agents should not use system-wide notification mechanisms to do so.
When a trusted notification (page 380) is shown, the user agent should bring the user's attention
to the notification and the script browsing context (page 368) of the script that invoked the
method, as per the platform conventions for attracting the user's attention to applications.
In the case of normal notifications (page 380), typically the only attention-grabbing device
that would be employed would be something like flashing the tab's caption, or making it
bold, or some such.
In addition, in the case of a trusted notification (page 380), the entire window could flash, or
the browser's application icon could bounce or flash briefly, or a short sound effect could be
played.
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Notifications should include the following content:
• The title, subtitle, and description strings passed to the method. They may be truncated
or abbreviated if necessary.
• The application name (page 108), if available, or else the document title (page 75), of
the active document (page 354) of the script browsing context (page 368) of the script
that invoked the method.
• An icon chosen from the external resource links (page 104) of type icon, if any are
available.
If a new notification from one browsing context (page 354) has title, subtitle, and description
strings that are identical to the title, subtitle, and description strings of an already-active
notification from the same browsing context (page 354) or another browsing context (page 354)
with the same origin (page 363), the user agent should not display the new notification, but
should instead add an indicator to the already-active notification that another identical
notification would otherwise have been shown.
For instance, if a user has his mail application open in three windows, and thus the same
"New Mail" notification is fired three times each time a mail is received, instead of displaying
three identical notifications each time, the user agent could just show one, with the title
"New Mail x3".
Notifications should have a lifetime based on the platform conventions for notifications.
However, the lifetime of a notification should not begin until the user has had the opportunity to
see it, so if a notification is spawned for a browsing context (page 354) that is hidden, it should
be shown for its complete lifetime once the user brings that browsing context (page 354) into
view.
User agents should support multiple notifications at once.
User agents should support user interaction with notifications, if and as appropriate given the
platform conventions. If a user activates a notification, and the onclick callback argument was
present and is not null, then the script browsing context (page 368) of the function given by
onclick should be brought to the user's attention, and the onclick callback should then be
invoked.
5.6 Browser state
The navigator attribute of the Window interface must return an instance of the
ClientInformation interface, which represents the identity and state of the user agent (the
client), and allows Web pages to register themselves as potential protocol and content handlers:
interface ClientInformation {
readonly attribute boolean onLine;
void registerProtocolHandler(in DOMString protocol, in DOMString url, in
DOMString title);
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void registerContentHandler(in DOMString mimeType, in DOMString url, in
DOMString title);
};
5.6.1 Custom protocol and content handlers
The registerProtocolHandler() method allows Web sites to register themselves as possible

handlers for particular protocols. For example, an online fax service could register itself as a
handler of the fax: protocol ([RFC2806]), so that if the user clicks on such a link, he is given the
opportunity to use that Web site. Analogously, the registerContentHandler() method allows
Web sites to register themselves as possible handlers for content in a particular MIME type. For
example, the same online fax service could register itself as a handler for image/g3fax files
([RFC1494]), so that if the user has no native application capable of handling G3 Facsimile byte
streams, his Web browser can instead suggest he use that site to view the image.
User agents may, within the constraints described in this section, do whatever they like when
the methods are called. A UA could, for instance, prompt the user and offer the user the
opportunity to add the site to a shortlist of handlers, or make the handlers his default, or cancel
the request. UAs could provide such a UI through modal UI or through a non-modal transient
notification interface. UAs could also simply silently collect the information, providing it only
when relevant to the user.
There is an example of how these methods could be presented to the user (page 385) below.
The arguments to the methods have the following meanings:
protocol (registerProtocolHandler() only)

A scheme, such as ftp or fax. The scheme must be treated case-insensitively by user
agents for the purposes of comparing with the scheme part of URLs that they consider
against the list of registered handlers.
The protocol value, if it contains a colon (as in "ftp:"), will never match anything, since
schemes don't contain colons.
mimeType (registerContentHandler() only)

A MIME type, such as model/vrml or text/richtext. The MIME type must be treated
case-insensitively by user agents for the purposes of comparing with MIME types of
documents that they consider against the list of registered handlers.
User agents must compare the given values only to the MIME type/subtype parts of content
types, not to the complete type including parameters. Thus, if mimeType values passed to
this method include characters such as commas or whitespace, or include MIME parameters,
then the handler being registered will never be used.
url
The URL (page 29) of the page that will handle the requests. When the user agent uses this
URL, it must replace the first occurrence of the exact literal string "%s" with an escaped
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version of the URL of the content in question (as defined below), then resolve (page 31) the
resulting URL (using the document base URL (page 31) of the script document context
(page 369) of the script that originally invoked the registerContentHandler() or
registerProtocolHandler() method), and then fetch the resulting URL using the GET
method (or equivalent for non-HTTP URLs).
To get the escaped version of the URL of the content in question, the user agent must
resolve (page 31) the URL, and then every character in the URL that doesn't match the
<query> production defined in RFC 3986 must be replaced by the percent-encoded form of
the character. [RFC3986]
If the user had visited a site at http://example.com/ that made the following call:
navigator.registerContentHandler('application/x-soup', 'soup?url=%s',
'SoupWeb™')
...and then, much later, while visiting http://www.example.net/, clicked on a link such
as:
<a href="chickenkïwi.soup">Download our Chicken Kiwi soup!</a>

...then, assuming this chickenkïwi.soup file was served with the MIME type
application/x-soup, the UA might navigate to the following URL:
http://example.com/soup?url=http://www.example.net/
chickenk%C3%AFwi.soup
This site could then fetch the chickenkïwi.soup file and do whatever it is that it does
with soup (synthesize it and ship it to the user, or whatever).
title
A descriptive title of the handler, which the UA might use to remind the user what the site in
question is.
User agents should raise security exceptions (page 369) if the methods are called with protocol
or mimeType values that the UA deems to be "privileged". For example, a site attempting to
register a handler for http URLs or text/html content in a Web browser would likely cause an
exception to be raised.
User agents must raise a SYNTAX_ERR exception if the url argument passed to one of these
methods does not contain the exact literal string "%s".
User agents must not raise any other exceptions (other than binding-specific exceptions, such as
for an incorrect number of arguments in an ECMAScript implementation).
This section does not define how the pages registered by these methods are used, beyond the
requirements on how to process the url value (see above). To some extent, the processing
model for navigating across documents (page 410) defines some cases where these methods
are relevant, but in general UAs may use this information wherever they would otherwise
consider handing content to native plugins or helper applications.
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UAs must not use registered content handlers to handle content that was returned as part of a
non-GET transaction (or rather, as part of any non-idempotent transaction), as the remote site
would not be able to fetch the same data.
5.6.1.1. Security and privacy
These mechanisms can introduce a number of concerns, in particular privacy concerns.
Hijacking all Web usage. User agents should not allow protocols that are key to its normal
operation, such as http or https, to be rerouted through third-party sites. This would allow a
user's activities to be trivially tracked, and would allow user information, even in secure
connections, to be collected.
Hijacking defaults. It is strongly recommended that user agents do not automatically change
any defaults, as this could lead the user to send data to remote hosts that the user is not
expecting. New handlers registering themselves should never automatically cause those sites to
be used.
Registration spamming. User agents should consider the possibility that a site will attempt to
register a large number of handlers, possibly from multiple domains (e.g. by redirecting through
a series of pages each on a different domain, and each registering a handler for video/mpeg —
analogous practices abusing other Web browser features have been used by pornography Web
sites for many years). User agents should gracefully handle such hostile attempts, protecting the
user.
Misleading titles. User agents should not rely wholly on the title argument to the methods
when presenting the registered handlers to the user, since sites could easily lie. For example, a
site hostile.example.net could claim that it was registering the "Cuddly Bear Happy Content
Handler". User agents should therefore use the handler's domain in any UI along with any title.
Hostile handler metadata. User agents should protect against typical attacks against strings
embedded in their interface, for example ensuring that markup or escape characters in such
strings are not executed, that null bytes are properly handled, that over-long strings do not
cause crashes or buffer overruns, and so forth.
Leaking Intranet URLs. The mechanism described in this section can result in secret Intranet
URLs being leaked, in the following manner:
1. The user registers a third-party content handler as the default handler for a content
type.
2. The user then browses his corporate Intranet site and accesses a document that uses
that content type.
3. The user agent contacts the third party and hands the third party the URI to the Intranet
content.
No actual confidential file data is leaked in this manner, but the URLs themselves could contain
confidential information. For example, the URL could be http://www.corp.example.com/
upcoming-aquisitions/the-sample-company.egf, which might tell the third party that
384
Example Corporation is intending to merge with The Sample Company. Implementors might wish
to consider allowing administrators to disable this feature for certain subdomains, content types,
or protocols.
Leaking secure URLs. User agents should not send HTTPS URLs to third-party sites registered
as content handlers, in the same way that user agents do not send Referer headers from
secure sites to third-party sites.
Leaking credentials. User agents must never send username or password information in the
URLs that are escaped and included sent to the handler sites. User agents may even avoid
attempting to pass to Web-based handlers the URLs of resources that are known to require
authentication to access, as such sites would be unable to access the resources in question
without prompting the user for credentials themselves (a practice that would require the user to
know whether to trust the third-party handler, a decision many users are unable to make or
even understand).
5.6.1.2. Sample user interface
A simple implementation of this feature for a desktop Web browser might work as follows.
The registerProtocolHandler() method could display a modal dialog box:
||[ Protocol Handler Registration ]|||||||||||||||||||||||||||

| |
| This Web page: |
| |
| Kittens at work |
| http://kittens.example.org/ |
| |
| ...would like permission to handle the protocol "x-meow:" |
| using the following Web-based application: |
| |
| Kittens-at-work displayer |
| http://kittens.example.org/?show=%s |
| |
| Do you trust the administrators of the "kittens.example. |
| org" domain? |
| |
| ( Trust kittens.example.org ) (( Cancel )) |
|____________________________________________________________|
...where "Kittens at work" is the title of the page that invoked the method,
"http://kittens.example.org/" is the URL of that page, "x-meow" is the string that was passed to
the registerProtocolHandler() method as its first argument (protocol),
"http://kittens.example.org/?show=%s" was the second argument (url), and "Kittens-at-work
displayer" was the third argument (title).
385
If the user clicks the Cancel button, then nothing further happens. If the user clicks the "Trust"
button, then the handler is remembered.
When the user then attempts to fetch a URL that uses the "x-meow:" scheme, then it might
display a dialog as follows:
||[ Unknown Protocol ]||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

| |
| You have attempted to access: |
| |
| x-meow:S2l0dGVucyBhcmUgdGhlIGN1dGVzdCE%3D |
| |
| How would you like FerretBrowser to handle this resource? |
| |
| (o) Contact the FerretBrowser plugin registry to see if |
| there is an official way to handle this resource. |
| |
| ( ) Pass this URL to a local application: |
| [ /no application selected/ ] ( Choose ) |
| |
| ( ) Pass this URL to the "Kittens-at-work displayer" |
| application at "kittens.example.org". |
| |
| [ ] Always do this for resources using the "x-meow" |
| protocol in future. |
| |
| ( Ok ) (( Cancel )) |
|____________________________________________________________|
...where the third option is the one that was primed by the site registering itself earlier.
If the user does select that option, then the browser, in accordance with the requirements
described in the previous two sections, will redirect the user to "http://kittens.example.org/
?show=x-meow%3AS2l0dGVucyBhcmUgdGhlIGN1dGVzdCE%253D".
The registerContentHandler() method would work equivalently, but for unknown MIME types
instead of unknown protocols.
5.7 Offline Web applications
5.7.1 Introduction
...
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5.7.2 Application caches
An application cache is a collection of resources. An application cache is identified by the

absolute URL (page 33) of a resource manifest which is used to populate the cache.
Application caches are versioned, and there can be different instances of caches for the same
manifest URL, each having a different version. A cache is newer than another if it was created
after the other (in other words, caches in a group have a chronological order).
Each group of application caches for the same manifest URL have a common update status,
which is one of the following: idle, checking, downloading.
A browsing context (page 354) can be associated with an application cache. A child browsing
context (page 355) is always associated with the same application cache as its parent browsing
context (page 355), if any. A top-level browsing context (page 355) is associated with the
application cache appropriate for its active document (page 354). (A browsing context's
associated cache thus can change (page 419) during session history traversal (page 418).)
A Document initially has no appropriate cache, but steps in the parser (page 559) and in the
navigation (page 410) sections cause cache selection (page 397) to occur early in the page load
process.
An application cache consists of:
• One of more resources (including their out-of-band metadata, such as HTTP headers, if
any), identified by URLs, each falling into one (or more) of the following categories:
Implicit entries
Documents that were added to the cache because a top-level browsing context
(page 355) was navigated (page 410) to that document and the document indicated
that this was its cache, using the manifest attribute.
The manifest
The resource corresponding to the URL that was given in an implicit entry's html
element's manifest attribute. The manifest is downloaded and processed during the
application cache update process (page 393). All the implicit entries (page 387)
have the same origin (page 366) as the manifest.
Explicit entries
Resources that were listed in the cache's manifest (page 387). Explicit entries can
also be marked as foreign, which means that they have a manifest attribute but
that it doesn't point at this cache's manifest (page 387).
Fallback entries
Resources that were listed in the cache's manifest (page 387) as fallback entries.
Opportunistically cached entries

Resources whose URLs matched (page 397) an opportunistic caching namespace
(page 388) when they were fetched, and were therefore cached in the application
cache.
387
Dynamic entries
Resources that were added to the cache by the add() method.
Note: A URL in the list can be flagged with multiple different types, and
thus an entry can end up being categorized as multiple entries. For
example, an entry can be an explicit entry and a dynamic entry at the
same time.
• Zero or more opportunistic caching namespaces: URLs, used as prefix match

patterns (page 397), each of which is mapped to a fallback entry (page 387). Each
namespace URL prefix, when parsed as a URL, has the same origin (page 366) as the
manifest (page 387).
• Zero or more URLs that form the online whitelist.
Multiple application caches can contain the same resource, e.g. if their manifests all reference
that resource. If the user agent is to select an application cache from a list of caches that
contain a resource, that the user agent must use the application cache that the user most likely
wants to see the resource from, taking into account the following:
• which application cache was most recently updated,
• which application cache was being used to display the resource from which the user
decided to look at the new resource, and
• which application cache the user prefers.
5.7.3 The cache manifest syntax

5.7.3.1. Writing cache manifests
Manifests must be served using the text/cache-manifest MIME type. All resources served
using the text/cache-manifest MIME type must follow the syntax of application cache
manifests, as described in this section.
An application cache manifest is a text file, whose text is encoded using UTF-8. Data in
application cache manifests is line-based. Newlines must be represented by U+000A LINE FEED
(LF) characters, U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN (CR) characters, or U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN
(CR) U+000A LINE FEED (LF) pairs.
Note: This is a willful double violation of RFC2046. [RFC2046]
The first line of an application cache manifest must consist of the string "CACHE", a single
U+0020 SPACE character, the string "MANIFEST", and zero or more U+0020 SPACE and U+0009
CHARACTER TABULATION (tab) characters. The first line may optionally be preceded by a
U+FEFF BYTE ORDER MARK (BOM) character. If any other text is found on the first line, the user
agent will ignore the entire file.
388
Subsequent lines, if any, must all be one of the following:
A blank line
Blank lines must consist of zero or more U+0020 SPACE and U+0009 CHARACTER
TABULATION (tab) characters only.
A comment
Comment lines must consist of zero or more U+0020 SPACE and U+0009 CHARACTER
TABULATION (tab) characters, followed by a single U+0023 NUMBER SIGN (#) character,
followed by zero or more characters other than U+000A LINE FEED (LF) and U+000D
CARRIAGE RETURN (CR) characters.
Note: Comments must be on a line on their own. If they were to be

included on a line with a URL, the "#" would be mistaken for part of a
fragment identifier.
A section header
Section headers change the current section. There are three possible section headers:
CACHE:
Switches to the explicit section.
FALLBACK:
Switches to the fallback section.
NETWORK:
Switches to the online whitelist section.
Section header lines must consist of zero or more U+0020 SPACE and U+0009 CHARACTER
TABULATION (tab) characters, followed by one of the names above (including the U+003A
COLON (:) character) followed by zero or more U+0020 SPACE and U+0009 CHARACTER
TABULATION (tab) characters.
Ironically, by default, the current section is the explicit section.
Data for the current section

The format that data lines must take depends on the current section.
When the current section is the explicit section or the online whitelist section, data lines
must consist of zero or more U+0020 SPACE and U+0009 CHARACTER TABULATION (tab)
characters, a valid URL (page 29) identifying a resource other than the manifest itself, and
then zero or more U+0020 SPACE and U+0009 CHARACTER TABULATION (tab) characters.
When the current section is the fallback section, data lines must consist of zero or more
U+0020 SPACE and U+0009 CHARACTER TABULATION (tab) characters, a valid URL (page
29) identifying a resource other than the manifest itself, one or more U+0020 SPACE and
U+0009 CHARACTER TABULATION (tab) characters, another valid URL (page 29) identifying
a resource other than the manifest itself, and then zero or more U+0020 SPACE and
U+0009 CHARACTER TABULATION (tab) characters.
389
Note: The URLs in data lines can't be empty strings, since those would be
relative URLs to the manifest itself. Such lines would be confused with
blank or invalid lines, anyway.
Manifests may contain sections more than once. Sections may be empty.
URLs that are to be fallback pages associated with opportunistic caching namespaces (page
388), and those namespaces themselves, must be given in fallback sections, with the
namespace being the first URL of the data line, and the corresponding fallback page being the
second URL. All the other pages to be cached must be listed in explicit sections.
Opportunistic caching namespaces (page 388) must have the same origin (page 366) as the
manifest itself.
An opportunistic caching namespace must not be listed more than once.
URLs that the user agent is to put into the online whitelist (page 388) must all be specified in
online whitelist sections. (This is needed for any URL that the page is intending to use to
communicate back to the server.)
URLs in the online whitelist section must not also be listed in explicit section, and must not be
listed as fallback entries in the fallback section. (URLs in the online whitelist section may match
opportunistic caching namespaces, however.)
Relative URLs must be given relative to the manifest's own URL.
URLs in manifests must not have fragment identifiers (i.e. the U+0023 NUMBER SIGN character
isn't allowed in URLs in manifests).
5.7.3.2. Parsing cache manifests
When a user agent is to parse a manifest, it means that the user agent must run the following
steps:
1. The user agent must decode the byte stream corresponding with the manifest to be
parsed, treating it as UTF-8. Bytes or sequences of bytes that are not valid UTF-8
sequences must be interpreted as a U+FFFD REPLACEMENT CHARACTER.
2. Let explicit URLs be an initially empty list of explicit entries (page 387).
3. Let fallback URLs be an initially empty mapping of opportunistic caching namespaces

(page 388) to fallback entries (page 387).
4. Let online whitelist URLs be an initially empty list of URLs for a online whitelist (page
388).
5. Let input be the decoded text of the manifest's byte stream.
6. Let position be a pointer into input, initially pointing at the first character.
390
7. If position is pointing at a U+FEFF BYTE ORDER MARK (BOM) character, then advance
position to the next character.
8. If the characters starting from position are "CACHE", followed by a U+0020 SPACE
character, followed by "MANIFEST", then advance position to the next character after
those. Otherwise, this isn't a cache manifest; abort this algorithm with a failure while
checking for the magic signature.
9. Collect a sequence of characters (page 36) that are U+0020 SPACE or U+0009
CHARACTER TABULATION (tab) characters.
10. If position is not past the end of input and the character at position is neither a U+000A
LINE FEED (LF) characters nor a U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN (CR) character, then this
isn't a cache manifest; abort this algorithm with a failure while checking for the magic
signature.
11. This is a cache manifest. The algorithm cannot fail beyond this point (though bogus lines
can get ignored).
12. Let mode be "explicit".
13. Start of line: If position is past the end of input, then jump to the last step. Otherwise,
collect a sequence of characters (page 36) that are U+000A LINE FEED (LF), U+000D
CARRIAGE RETURN (CR), U+0020 SPACE, or U+0009 CHARACTER TABULATION (tab)
characters.
14. Now, collect a sequence of characters (page 36) that are not U+000A LINE FEED (LF) or
U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN (CR) characters, and let the result be line.
15. Drop any trailing U+0020 SPACE, or U+0009 CHARACTER TABULATION (tab) characters
at the end of line.
16. If line is the empty string, then jump back to the step labeled "start of line".
17. If the first character in line is a U+0023 NUMBER SIGN (#) character, then jump back to
the step labeled "start of line".
18. If line equals "CACHE:" (the word "CACHE" followed by a U+003A COLON (:) character),
then set mode to "explicit" and jump back to the step labeled "start of line".
19. If line equals "FALLBACK:" (the word "FALLBACK" followed by a U+003A COLON (:)
character), then set mode to "fallback" and jump back to the step labeled "start of line".
20. If line equals "NETWORK:" (the word "NETWORK" followed by a U+003A COLON (:)
character), then set mode to "online whitelist" and jump back to the step labeled "start
of line".
21. This is either a data line or it is syntactically incorrect.
↪ If mode is "explicit"
Resolve (page 31) line.
391
If this fails, then jump back to the step labeled "start of line".
If the resulting absolute URL (page 33) has a different <scheme> (page 30)
component than the manifest's URL (compared case-insensitively), then jump
back to the step labeled "start of line".
Drop the <fragment> (page 31) component of the resulting absolute URL (page
33), if it has one.
Add the resulting absolute URL (page 33) to the explicit URLs.
↪ If mode is "fallback"
If line does not contain at least one U+0020 SPACE or U+0009 CHARACTER
TABULATION (tab) character, then jump back to the step labeled "start of line".
Otherwise, let everything before the first U+0020 SPACE or U+0009

CHARACTER TABULATION (tab) character in line be part one, and let everything
after the first U+0020 SPACE or U+0009 CHARACTER TABULATION (tab)
character in line be part two.
Resolve (page 31) part one and part two.
If either fails, then jump back to the step labeled "start of line".
If the absolute URL (page 33) corresponding to part one does not have the same
origin (page 366) as the manifest's URL, then jump back to the step labeled
"start of line".
If the resulting absolute URL (page 33) for part two has a different <scheme>
(page 30) component than the manifest's URL (compared case-insensitively),
then jump back to the step labeled "start of line".
Drop any the <fragment> (page 31) components of the resulting absolute URLs
(page 33).
If the absolute URL (page 33) corresponding to part one is already in the
fallback URIs mapping as an opportunistic caching namespace (page 388), then
jump back to the step labeled "start of line".
Otherwise, add the absolute URL (page 33) corresponding to part one to the
fallback URIs mapping as an opportunistic caching namespace (page 388),
mapped to the absolute URL (page 33) corresponding to part two as the fallback
entry (page 387).
↪ If mode is "online whitelist"

Resolve (page 31) line.
If this fails, then jump back to the step labeled "start of line".
392
If the resulting absolute URL (page 33) has a different <scheme> (page 30)
component than the manifest's URL (compared case-insensitively), then jump
back to the step labeled "start of line".
Drop the <fragment> (page 31) component of the resulting absolute URL (page
33), if it has one.
Add the resulting absolute URL (page 33) to the online whitelist URLs.
22. Jump back to the step labeled "start of line". (That step jumps to the next, and last, step
when the end of the file is reached.)
23. Return the explicit URLs list, the fallback URLs mapping, and the online whitelist URLs.
Note: If a resource is listed in both the online whitelist and in the explicit
section, then that resource will be downloaded and cached, but when the page
tries to use this resource, the user agent will ignore the cached copy and
attempt to fetch the file from the network. Indeed, the cached copy will only
be used if it is opened from a top-level browsing context.
5.7.4 Updating an application cache
When the user agent is required (by other parts of this specification) to start the application
cache update process, the user agent must run the following steps:
the event stuff needs to be more consistent -- something about showing every step of the ui
or no steps or something; and we need to deal with showing ui for browsing contexts that
open when an update is already in progress, and we may need to give applications control
over the ui the first time they cache themselves (right now the original cache is done without
notifications to the browsing contexts)
1. Let manifest URL be the URL of the manifest (page 387) of the cache to be updated.
2. Let cache group be the group of application caches (page 387) identified by manifest
URL.
3. Let cache be the most recently updated application cache (page 387) identified by
manifest URL (that is, the newest version found in cache group).
4. If the status (page 387) of the cache group is either checking or downloading, then abort
these steps, as an update is already in progress for them. Otherwise, set the status
(page 387) of this group of caches to checking. This entire step must be performed as
one atomic operation so as to avoid race conditions.
5. If there is already a resource with the URL of manifest URL in cache, and that resource is
categorized as a manifest (page 387), then this is an upgrade attempt. Otherwise, this
is a cache attempt.
393
Note: If this is a cache attempt (page 393), then cache is forcibly the
only application cache in cache group, and it hasn't ever been
populated from its manifest (i.e. this update is an attempt to download
the application for the first time). It also can't have any browsing
contexts associated with it.
6. Fire a simple event (page 375) called checking at the ApplicationCache singleton of
each top-level browsing context (page 355) that is associated with a cache in cache
group. The default action of this event should be the display of some sort of user
interface indicating to the user that the user agent is checking for the availability of
updates.
7. Fetch the resource from manifest URL, and let manifest be that resource.
If the resource is labeled with the MIME type text/cache-manifest, parse manifest
according to the rules for parsing manifests (page 390), obtaining a list of explicit entries
(page 387), fallback entries (page 387) and the opportunistic caching namespaces (page
388) that map to them, and entries for the online whitelist (page 388).
8. If the previous step fails (e.g. the server returns a 4xx or 5xx response or equivalent, or
there is a DNS error, or the connection times out, or the user cancels the download, or
the parser for manifests fails when checking the magic signature), or if the resource is
labeled with a MIME type other than text/cache-manifest, then run the cache failure
steps (page 397).
9. If this is an upgrade attempt (page 393) and the newly downloaded manifest is
byte-for-byte identical to the manifest found in cache, or if the server reported it as "304
Not Modified" or equivalent, then run these substeps:
1. Fire a simple event (page 375) called noupdate at the ApplicationCache

singleton of each top-level browsing context (page 355) that is associated with a
cache in cache group. The default action of this event should be the display of
some sort of user interface indicating to the user that the application is up to
date.
2. If there are any pending downloads of implicit entries that are being stored in
the cache, then wait for all of them to have completed. If any of these downloads
fail (e.g. the server returns a 4xx or 5xx response or equivalent, or there is a
DNS error, or the connection times out, or the user cancels the download), then
run the cache failure steps (page 397).
3. Let the status (page 387) of the group of caches to which cache belongs be idle.
If appropriate, remove any user interface indicating that an update for this cache
is in progress.
4. Abort the update process.
10. Set the status (page 387) of cache group to downloading.
394
11. Fire a simple event (page 375) called downloading at the ApplicationCache singleton
of each top-level browsing context (page 355) that is associated with a cache in cache
interface indicating to the user that a new version is being downloaded.
12. If this is an upgrade attempt (page 393), then let new cache be a newly created
application cache (page 387) identified by manifest URL, being a new version in cache
group. Otherwise, let new cache and cache be the same version of the application
cache.
13. Let file list be an empty list of URLs with flags.
14. Add all the URLs in the list of explicit entries (page 387) obtained by parsing manifest to
file list, each flagged with "explicit entry".
15. Add all the URLs in the list of fallback entries (page 387) obtained by parsing manifest to
file list, each flagged with "fallback entry".
16. If this is an upgrade attempt (page 393), then add all the URLs of opportunistically
cached entries (page 387) in cache that match (page 397) the opportunistic caching
namespaces (page 388) obtained by parsing manifest to file list, each flagged with
"opportunistic entry".
17. If this is an upgrade attempt (page 393), then add all the URLs of implicit entries (page
387) in cache to file list, each flagged with "implicit entry".
18. If this is an upgrade attempt (page 393), then add all the URLs of dynamic entries (page
388) in cache to file list, each flagged with "dynamic entry".
19. If any URL is in file list more than once, then merge the entries into one entry for that
URL, that entry having all the flags that the original entries had.
20. For each URL in file list, run the following steps. These steps may be run in parallel for
two or more of the URLs at a time.
1. Fire a simple event (page 375) called progress at the ApplicationCache

singleton of each top-level browsing context (page 355) that is associated with a
cache in cache group. The default action of this event should be the display of
some sort of user interface indicating to the user that a file is being downloaded
in preparation for updating the application.
2. Fetch the resource. If this is an upgrade attempt (page 393), then use cache as
an HTTP cache, and honor HTTP caching semantics (such as expiration, ETags,
and so forth) with respect to that cache. User agents may also have other
caches in place that are also honored. If the resource in question is already
being downloaded for other reasons then the existing download process may be
used for the purposes of this step.
An example of a resource that might already be being downloaded is a large

image on a Web page that is being seen for the first time. The image would
get downloaded to satisfy the img element on the page, as well as being
395
listed in the cache manifest. According to the previous paragraph, that
image only need be downloaded once, and it can be used both for the cache
and for the rendered Web page.
3. If the previous steps fails (e.g. the server returns a 4xx or 5xx response or
equivalent, or there is a DNS error, or the connection times out, or the user
cancels the download), then run the cache failure steps (page 397).
4. Otherwise, the fetching succeeded. Store the resource in the new cache.
5. If the URL being processed was flagged as an "explicit entry" in file list, then
categorize the entry as an explicit entry (page 387).
6. If the URL being processed was flagged as a "fallback entry" in file list, then
categorize the entry as a fallback entry (page 387).
7. If the URL being processed was flagged as a "opportunistic entry" in file list, then
categorize the entry as an opportunistically cached entry (page 387).
8. If the URL being processed was flagged as an "implicit entry" in file list, then
categorize the entry as a implicit entry (page 387).
9. If the URL being processed was flagged as an "dynamic entry" in file list, then
categorize the entry as a dynamic entry (page 388).
21. Store manifest in new cache, if it's not there already, and categorize this entry (whether
newly added or not) as the manifest (page 387).
22. Store the list of opportunistic caching namespaces (page 388), and the URLs of the
fallback entries (page 387) that they map to, in the new cache.
23. Store the URLs that form the new online whitelist (page 388) in the new cache.
24. Wait for all pending downloads of implicit entries that are being stored in the cache to
have completed.
For example, if the top-level browsing context (page 355)'s active document (page
354) isn't itself listed in the cache manifest, then it might still be being downloaded.
If any of these downloads fail (e.g. the server returns a 4xx or 5xx response or
equivalent, or there is a DNS error, or the connection times out, or the user cancels the
download), then run the cache failure steps (page 397).
25. If this is a cache attempt (page 393), then:
Associate any Document objects that were flagged as candidates (page 399) for this
manifest URL's caches with cache.
Fire a simple event (page 375) called cached at the ApplicationCache singleton of each
top-level browsing context (page 355) that is associated with a cache in cache group.
The default action of this event should be the display of some sort of user interface
396
indicating to the user that the application has been cached and that they can now use it
offline.
Set the status (page 387) of cache group to idle.
26. Otherwise, this is an upgrade attempt (page 393):
Fire a simple event (page 375) called updateready at the ApplicationCache singleton
of each top-level browsing context (page 355) that is associated with a cache in cache
interface indicating to the user that a new version is available and that they can activate
it by reloading the page.
Set the status (page 387) of cache group to idle.
The cache failure steps are as follows:
1. Fire a simple event (page 375) called error at the ApplicationCache singleton of each
top-level browsing context (page 355) that is associated with a cache in cache group.
The default action of this event should be the display of some sort of user interface
indicating to the user that the user agent failed to save the application for offline use.
2. If this is a cache attempt (page 393), then discard cache and abort the update process.
3. Otherwise, let the status (page 387) of the group of caches to which cache belongs be
idle. If appropriate, remove any user interface indicating that an update for this cache is
in progress. Abort the update process.
The processing model of application caches for offline support in Web applications is part of the
navigation (page 410) model, but references the algorithms defined in this section.
A URL matches an opportunistic caching namespace if there exists an application cache

(page 387) whose manifest (page 387)'s URL has the same origin (page 366) as the URL in
question, and if that application cache has an opportunistic caching namespace (page 388) with
a <path> (page 30) component that exactly matches the start of the <path> (page 30)
component of the URL being examined. If multiple opportunistic caching namespaces match the
same URL, the one with the longest <path> component is the one that matches. A URL looking
for an opportunistic caching namespace can match more than one application cache at a time,
but only matches one namespace in each cache.
If a manifest http://example.com/app1/manifest declares that http://example.com/

resources/images should be opportunistically cached, and the user navigates to
http://example.com/resources/images/cat.png, then the user agent will decide that the
application cache identified by http://example.com/app1/manifest contains a namespace
with a match for that URL.
When the application cache selection algorithm algorithm is invoked with a manifest URL,
the user agent must run the first applicable set of steps from the following list:
397
↪ If the resource is not being loaded as part of navigation of a top-level browsing
context (page 355)
As an optimization, if the resource was loaded from an application cache (page 387),
and the manifest URL of that cache doesn't match the manifest URL with which the
algorithm was invoked, then the user agent should mark the entry in that application
cache corresponding to the resource that was just loaded as being foreign (page 387).
Other than that, nothing special happens with respect to application caches.
↪ If the resource being loaded was loaded from an application cache and the URL of
that application cache's manifest is the same as the manifest URL with which the
algorithm was invoked
Associate the Document with the cache from which it was loaded. Invoke the application
cache update process (page 393).
↪ If the resource being loaded was loaded from an application cache and the URL of
that application cache's manifest is not the same as the manifest URL with which
the algorithm was invoked
Mark the entry for this resource in the application cache from which it was loaded as
foreign (page 387).
Restart the current navigation from the top of the navigation algorithm (page 410),
undoing any changes that were made as part of the initial load (changes can be avoided
by ensuring that the step to update the session history with the new page (page 413) is
only ever completed after the application cache selection algorithm is run, though this is
not required).
Note: The navigation will not result in the same resource being loaded,
because "foreign" entries are never picked during navigation.
User agents may notify the user of the inconsistency between the cache manifest and
the resource's own metadata, to aid in application development.
↪ If the resource being loaded was not loaded from an application cache, but it was
loaded using HTTP GET or equivalent
1. If the manifest URL does not have the same origin (page 366) as the resource's
own URL, then invoke the application cache selection algorithm (page 399)
again, but without a manifest, and abort these steps.
2. If there is already an application cache (page 387) identified by this manifest

URL, and the most up to date version of that application cache (page 387)
contains a resource with the URL of the manifest, and that resource is
categorized as a manifest (page 387), then: store the resource in the matching
cache, categorized as an implicit entry (page 387), associate the Document with
that cache, invoke the application cache update process (page 393), and abort
these steps.
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3. Flag the resource's Document as a candidate for this manifest URL's caches, so
that it will be associated with an application cache identified by this manifest
URL (page 396) later, when such an application cache (page 387) is ready.
4. If there is already an application cache (page 387) identified by this manifest

URL, then the most up to date version of that application cache (page 387) does
not yet contain a resource with the URL of the manifest, or it does but that
resource is not yet categorized as a manifest (page 387): store the resource in
that cache, categorized as an implicit entry (page 387) (replacing the file's
previous contents if it was already in the cache, but not removing any other
categories it might have), and abort these steps. (An application cache update
process (page 393) is already in progress.)
5. Otherwise, there is no matching application cache (page 387): create a new

application cache identified by this manifest URL, store the resource in that
cache, categorized as an implicit entry (page 387), and then invoke the
application cache update process (page 393).
↪ Otherwise
Invoke the application cache selection algorithm (page 399) again, but without a
manifest.
When the application cache selection algorithm is invoked without a manifest, then: if the
resource is being loaded as part of navigation of a top-level browsing context (page 355), and
the resource was fetched from a particular application cache (page 387), then the user agent
must associate the Document with that application cache and invoke the application cache
update process (page 393) for that cache; otherwise, nothing special happens with respect to
application caches.
5.7.5.1. Changes to the networking model
When a browsing context is associated with an application cache (page 387), any and all
resource loads must go through the following steps instead of immediately invoking the
mechanisms appropriate to that resource's scheme:
1. If the resource is not to be fetched using the HTTP GET mechanism or equivalent, then
fetch the resource normally and abort these steps.
2. If the resource's URL, ignoring its fragment identifier if any, is listed in the application
cache (page 387)'s online whitelist (page 388), then fetch the resource normally and
abort these steps.
3. If the resource's URL is an implicit entry (page 387), the manifest (page 387), an explicit
entry (page 387), a fallback entry (page 387), an opportunistically cached entry (page
387), or a dynamic entry (page 388) in the application cache (page 387), then fetch the
resource from the cache and abort these steps.
4. If the resource's URL has the same origin (page 366) as the manifest's URL, and the start
of the resource's URL's <path> (page 30) component is exactly matched by the <path>
399
component of an opportunistic caching namespace (page 388) in the application cache
(page 387), then:
Fetch the resource normally. If this results 4xx or 5xx status codes or equivalent, or if
there were network errors (but not if the user canceled the download), then instead
fetch, from the cache, the resource of the fallback entry (page 387) corresponding to the
namespace with the longest matching <path> component. Abort these steps.
5. Fail the resource load.
Note: The above algorithm ensures that resources that are not present in the
manifest will always fail to load (at least, after the cache has been primed the
first time), making the testing of offline applications simpler.
5.7.6 Application cache API
interface ApplicationCache {
// update status
const unsigned short UNCACHED = 0;
const unsigned short IDLE = 1;
const unsigned short CHECKING = 2;
const unsigned short DOWNLOADING = 3;
const unsigned short UPDATEREADY = 4;
readonly attribute unsigned short status;
// updates
void update();
void swapCache();
// dynamic entries
DOMString item(in unsigned long index);
void add(in DOMString url);
void remove(in DOMString url);
// events
attribute EventListener onchecking;
attribute EventListener onnoupdate;
attribute EventListener ondownloading;
attribute EventListener onprogress;
attribute EventListener onupdateready;
attribute EventListener oncached;
};
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Objects implementing the ApplicationCache interface must also implement the EventTarget
interface.
There is a one-to-one mapping from Document objects to ApplicationCache objects. The

applicationCache attribute on Window objects must return the ApplicationCache object
associated with the active document (page 354) of the Window's browsing context (page 354).
An ApplicationCache object might be associated with an application cache (page 387). When
the Document object that the ApplicationCache object maps to is associated with an application
cache, then that is the application cache with which the ApplicationCache object is associated.
Otherwise, the ApplicationCache object is associated with the application cache that the
Document object's browsing context (page 354) is associated with, if any.
The status attribute, on getting, must return the current state of the application cache (page
387) ApplicationCache object is associated with, if any. This must be the appropriate value
from the following list:
UNCACHED (numeric value 0)

The ApplicationCache object is not associated with an application cache (page 387) at this
time.
IDLE (numeric value 1)

The ApplicationCache object is associated with an application cache (page 387) whose
group is in the idle update status, and that application cache is the newest cache in its
group that contains a resource categorized as a manifest (page 387).
CHECKING (numeric value 2)

group is in the checking update status.
DOWNLOADING (numeric value 3)

group is in the downloading update status.
UPDATEREADY (numeric value 4)

group is in the idle update status, but that application cache is not the newest cache in its
group that contains a resource categorized as a manifest (page 387).
The length attribute must return the number of dynamic entries (page 388) in the application
cache (page 387) with which the ApplicationCache object is associated, if any, and zero if the
object is not associated with any application cache.
The dynamic entries (page 388) in the application cache (page 387) are ordered in the same
order as they were added to the cache by the add() method, with the oldest entry being the
zeroth entry, and the most recently added entry having the index length-1.
The item(index) method must return the absolute URL (page 33) of the dynamic entry (page
388) with index index from the application cache (page 387), if one is associated with the
401
ApplicationCache object. If the object is not associated with any application cache, or if the
index argument is lower than zero or greater than length-1, the method must instead raise an
INDEX_SIZE_ERR exception.
The add(url) method must run the following steps:
1. If the ApplicationCache object is not associated with any application cache, then raise
an INVALID_STATE_ERR exception and abort these steps.
2. Resolve (page 31) the url argument. If this fails, raise a SYNTAX_ERR exception and abort
these steps.
3. If there is already a resource in in the application cache (page 387) with which the
ApplicationCache object is associated that has the address url, then ensure that entry
is categorized as a dynamic entry (page 388) and return and abort these steps.
4. If url has a different <scheme> (page 30) component than the manifest's URL, then
raise a security exception (page 369).
5. Return, but do not abort these steps.
6. Fetch the resource referenced by url.
7. If this results 4xx or 5xx status codes or equivalent, or if there were network errors, or if
the user canceled the download, then abort these steps.
8. Wait for there to be no running scripts, or at least no running scripts that can reach an
ApplicationCache object associated with the application cache (page 387) with which
this ApplicationCache object is associated.
Add the fetched resource to the application cache (page 387) and categorize it as a
dynamic entry (page 388) before letting any such scripts resume.
We can make the add() API more usable (i.e. make it possible to detect progress and
distinguish success from errors without polling and timeouts) if we have the method return an
object that is a target of Progress Events, much like the XMLHttpRequestEventTarget
interface. This would also make this far more complex to spec and implement.
The remove(url) method must resolve (page 31) the url argument and, if that is successful,
remove the dynamic entry (page 388) categorization of any entry whose address is the resulting
absolute URL (page 33) in the application cache (page 387) with which the ApplicationCache
object is associated. If this removes the last categorization of an entry in that cache, then the
entry must be removed entirely (such that if it is re-added, it will be loaded from the network
again). If the ApplicationCache object is not associated with any application cache, then the
method must raise an INVALID_STATE_ERR exception instead.
If the update() method is invoked, the user agent must invoke the application cache update
process (page 393), in the background, for the application cache (page 387) with which the
ApplicationCache object is associated. If there is no such application cache, then the method
must raise an INVALID_STATE_ERR exception instead.
402
If the swapCache() method is invoked, the user agent must run the following steps:
1. Let document be the Document with which the ApplicationCache object is associated.
2. Check that document is associated with an application cache (page 387). If it is not, then
raise an INVALID_STATE_ERR exception and abort these steps.
Note: This is not the same thing as the ApplicationCache object being
itself associated with an application cache (page 387)! In particular, the
Document with which the ApplicationCache object is associated can only
itself be associated with an application cache if it is in a top-level
3. Let cache be the application cache (page 387) with which the ApplicationCache object
is associated. (By definition, this is the same as the one that was found in the previous
step.)
4. Check that there is an application cache in the same group as cache which has an entry
categorized as a manifest (page 387) that has is newer than cache. If there is not, then
raise an INVALID_STATE_ERR exception and abort these steps.
5. Let new cache be the newest application cache (page 387) in the same group as cache
which has an entry categorized as a manifest (page 387).
6. Unassociate document from cache and instead associate it with new cache.
The following are the event handler DOM attributes (page 371) that must be supported by
objects implementing the ApplicationCache interface:
onchecking
Must be invoked whenever an checking event is targeted at or bubbles through the
ApplicationCache object.
onerror
Must be invoked whenever an error event is targeted at or bubbles through the
onnoupdate
Must be invoked whenever an noupdate event is targeted at or bubbles through the
ondownloading
Must be invoked whenever an downloading event is targeted at or bubbles through the
onprogress
Must be invoked whenever an progress event is targeted at or bubbles through the
403
onupdateready
Must be invoked whenever an updateready event is targeted at or bubbles through the
oncached
Must be invoked whenever a cached event is targeted at or bubbles through the
5.7.7 Browser state
The navigator.onLine attribute must return false if the user agent will not contact the network
when the user follows links or when a script requests a remote page (or knows that such an
attempt would fail), and must return true otherwise.
When the value that would be returned by the navigator.onLine attribute of the Window
changes from true to false, the user agent must fire a simple event (page 375) called offline at
the body element (page 76).
On the other hand, when the value that would be returned by the navigator.onLine attribute of
the Window changes from false to true, the user agent must fire a simple event (page 375) called
online at the body element (page 76).
5.8 Session history and navigation
5.8.1 The session history of browsing contexts
The sequence of Documents in a browsing context (page 354) is its session history.
History objects provide a representation of the pages in the session history of browsing
contexts (page 354). Each browsing context has a distinct session history.
Each Document object in a browsing context's session history is associated with a unique
instance of the History object, although they all must model the same underlying session
history.
The history attribute of the Window interface must return the object implementing the History
interface for that Window object's active document (page 354).
History objects represent their browsing context (page 354)'s session history as a flat list of
session history entries (page 404). Each session history entry consists of either a URL (page
29) or a state object (page 405), or both, and may in addition have a title, a Document object,
form data, a scroll position, and other information associated with it.
Note: This does not imply that the user interface need be linear. See the notes
below (page 410).
404
URLs without associated state objects (page 405) are added to the session history as the user
(or script) navigates from page to page.
A state object is an object representing a user interface state.
Pages can add (page 406) state objects (page 405) between their entry in the session history
and the next ("forward") entry. These are then returned to the script (page 408) when the user
(or script) goes back in the history, thus enabling authors to use the "navigation" metaphor even
in one-page applications.
Every Document in the session history is defined to have a last activated entry, which is the
state object (page 405) entry associated with that Document which was most recently activated.
Initially, the last activated entry (page 405) of a Document must be the first entry for the
Document, representing the fact that no state object (page 405) entry has yet been activated.
At any point, one of the entries in the session history is the current entry. This is the entry
representing the active document (page 354) of the browsing context (page 354). The current
entry (page 405) is usually an entry for the location (page 409) of the Document. However, it can
also be one of the entries for state objects (page 405) added to the history by that document.
Entries that consist of state objects (page 405) share the same Document as the entry for the
page that was active when they were added.
Contiguous entries that differ just by fragment identifier also share the same Document.
Note: All entries that share the same Document (and that are therefore merely
different states of one particular document) are contiguous by definition.
User agents may discard the DOMs of entries other than the current entry (page 405) that are
not referenced from any script, reloading the pages afresh when the user or script navigates
back to such pages. This specification does not specify when user agents should discard pages'
DOMs and when they should cache them. See the section on the load and unload events for
more details.
Entries that have had their DOM discarded must, for the purposes of the algorithms given below,
act as if they had not. When the user or script navigates back or forwards to a page which has
no in-memory DOM objects, any other entries that shared the same Document object with it must
share the new object as well.
When state object entries are added, a URL can be provided. This URL is used to replace the
state object entry if the Document is evicted.
When a user agent discards the DOM from an entry in the session history, it must also discard all
the entries that share that Document but do not have an associated URL (i.e. entries that only
have a state object (page 405)). Entries that shared that Document object but had a state object
and have a different URL must then have their state objects removed. Removed entries are not
recreated if the user or script navigates back to the page. If there are no state object entries for
that Document object then no entries are removed.
405
when an entry is discarded, any frozen timers, intervals, XMLHttpRequests, database
transactions, etc, must be killed
5.8.2 The History interface
interface History {
readonly attribute long length;
void go(in long delta);
void go();
void back();
void forward();
void pushState(in DOMObject data, in DOMString title);
void pushState(in DOMObject data, in DOMString title, in DOMString url);
void clearState();
};
The length attribute of the History interface must return the number of entries in this session
history (page 404).
The actual entries are not accessible from script.
The go(delta) method causes the UA to move the number of steps specified by delta in the
session history.
If the index of the current entry (page 405) plus delta is less than zero or greater than or equal
to the number of items in the session history (page 406), then the user agent must do nothing.
If the delta is zero, then the user agent must act as if the location.reload() method was
called instead.
Otherwise, the user agent must cause the current browsing context (page 354) to traverse the
history (page 418) to the specified entry. The specified entry is the one whose index equals the
index of the current entry (page 405) plus delta.
When the user navigates through a browsing context (page 354), e.g. using a browser's back
and forward buttons, the user agent must translate this action into the equivalent invocations of
the history.go(delta) method on the various affected window objects.
Some of the other members of the History interface are defined in terms of the go() method,
as follows:
Member Definition
go() Must do the same as go(0)
back() Must do the same as go(-1)
forward() Must do the same as go(1)
The pushState(data, title, url) method adds a state object to the history.
406
When this method is invoked, the user agent must run the following steps:
1. If a third argument is specified, run these substeps:
1. Resolve (page 31) the value of the third argument.
2. If that fails, raise a security exception (page 369) and abort the pushState()
steps.
3. Compare the resulting absolute URL (page 33) to the document's address. If any
part of these two URLs (page 29) differ other than the <path> (page 30),
<query> (page 30), and <fragment> (page 31) components, then raise a
security exception (page 369) and abort the pushState() steps.
For the purposes of the comparison in the above substeps, the <path> (page 30) and
<query> (page 30) components can only be the same if the URLs use a hierarchical
<scheme> (page 30).
2. Remove from the session history (page 404) any entries for the Document from the entry
after the current entry (page 405) up to the last entry in the session history that
references the same Document object, if any. If the current entry (page 405) is the last
entry in the session history, or if there are no entries after the current entry (page 405)
that reference the same Document object, then no entries are removed.
3. Add a state object entry to the session history, after the current entry (page 405), with
the specified data as the state object, the given title as the title, and, if the third
argument is present, the absolute URL (page 33) that was found in the first step as the
URL of the entry.
4. Set this new entry as being the last activated entry (page 405) for the Document.
5. Update the current entry (page 405) to be the this newly added entry.
Note: The title is purely advisory. User agents might use the title in the user
interface.
User agents may limit the number of state objects added to the session history per page. If a
page hits the UA-defined limit, user agents must remove the entry immediately after the first
entry for that Document object in the session history after having added the new entry. (Thus the
state history acts as a FIFO buffer for eviction, but as a LIFO buffer for navigation.)
The clearState() method removes all the state objects for the Document object from the
session history.
When this method is invoked, the user agent must remove from the session history all the
entries from the first state object entry for that Document object up to the last entry that
references that same Document object, if any.
Then, if the current entry (page 405) was removed in the previous step, the current entry (page
405) must be set to the last entry for that Document object in the session history.
407
5.8.3 Activating state object entries
When an entry in the session history is activated (which happens during session traversal (page
418), as described above), the user agent must run the following steps:
1. First, the user agent must set this new entry as being the last activated entry (page 405)
for the Document to which the entry belongs.
2. If the entry is a state object (page 405) entry, let state be that state object. Otherwise,
the entry is the first entry for the Document; let state be null.
3. The user agent must then fire a popstate event in no namespace on the body element
(page 76) using the PopStateEvent interface, with the state attribute set to the value
of state. This event bubbles but is not cancelable and has no default action.
interface PopStateEvent : Event {

readonly attribute DOMObject state;
void initPopStateEvent(in DOMString typeArg, in boolean canBubbleArg, in
boolean cancelableArg, in DOMObject stateArg);
void initPopStateEventNS(in DOMString namespaceURIArg, in DOMString
typeArg, in boolean canBubbleArg, in boolean cancelableArg, in DOMObject
stateArg);
};
The initPopStateEvent() and initPopStateEventNS() methods must initialise the event in a

manner analogous to the similarly-named methods in the DOM3 Events interfaces.
[DOM3EVENTS]
The state attribute represents the context information for the event, or null, if the state
represented is the initial state of the Document.
5.8.4 The Location interface
Each Document object in a browsing context's session history is associated with a unique
instance of a Location object.
The location attribute of the HTMLDocument interface must return the Location object for that
Document object.
The location attribute of the Window interface must return the Location object for that Window
object's active document (page 354).
Location objects provide a representation of their document's address, and allow the current
entry (page 405) of the browsing context (page 354)'s session history to be changed, by adding
or replacing entries in the history object.
interface Location {
readonly attribute DOMString href;
void assign(in DOMString url);
408
void replace(in DOMString url);
void reload();
// URL decomposition attributes

attribute DOMString protocol;
attribute DOMString host;
attribute DOMString hostname;
attribute DOMString port;
attribute DOMString pathname;
attribute DOMString search;
attribute DOMString hash;
};
The href attribute must return the address of the page represented by the associated Document
object, as an absolute URL (page 33).
On setting, the user agent must act as if the assign() method had been called with the new
value as its argument.
When the assign(url) method is invoked, the UA must navigate (page 410) the browsing
context (page 354) to the specified url.
When the replace(url) method is invoked, the UA must navigate (page 410) the browsing
context (page 354) to the specified url with replacement enabled (page 414).
Navigation for the assign() and replace() methods must be done with the script browsing
context (page 368) of the script that invoked the method as the source browsing context (page
410).
The Location interface also has the complement of URL decomposition attributes (page 34),
protocol, host, port, hostname, pathname, search, and hash. These must follow the rules given
for URL decomposition attributes, with the input (page 34) being the address of the page
represented by the associated Document object, as an absolute URL (page 33) (same as the href
attribute), and the common setter action (page 34) being the same as setting the href attribute
to the new output value.
5.8.4.1. Security
User agents must raise a security exception (page 369) whenever any of the members of a
Location object are accessed by scripts whose effective script origin (page 363) is not the same
(page 366) as the Location object's associated Document's effective script origin (page 363),
with the following exceptions:
• The href setter, if the script is running in a browsing context (page 354) that is allowed
to navigate (page 356) the browsing context with which the Location object is
associated
User agents must not allow scripts to override the href attribute's setter.
409
5.8.5 Implementation notes for session history
The History interface is not meant to place restrictions on how implementations represent the
session history to the user.
For example, session history could be implemented in a tree-like manner, with each page having
multiple "forward" pages. This specification doesn't define how the linear list of pages in the
history object are derived from the actual session history as seen from the user's perspective.
Similarly, a page containing two iframes has a history object distinct from the iframes'
history objects, despite the fact that typical Web browsers present the user with just one
"Back" button, with a session history that interleaves the navigation of the two inner frames and
the outer page.
Security: It is suggested that to avoid letting a page "hijack" the history navigation facilities of
a UA by abusing pushState(), the UA provide the user with a way to jump back to the previous
page (rather than just going back to the previous state). For example, the back button could
have a drop down showing just the pages in the session history, and not showing any of the
states. Similarly, an aural browser could have two "back" commands, one that goes back to the
previous state, and one that jumps straight back to the previous page.
In addition, a user agent could ignore calls to pushState() that are invoked on a timer, or from
event handlers that do not represent a clear user action, or that are invoked in rapid succession.
5.9 Browsing the Web
5.9.1 Navigating across documents
Certain actions cause the browsing context (page 354) to navigate to a new resource.
Navigation always involves source browsing context, which is the browsing context which
was responsible for starting the navigation.
For example, following a hyperlink (page 437), form submission, and the window.open()
and location.assign() methods can all cause a browsing context to navigate.
A user agent may provide various ways for the user to explicitly cause a browsing context to
navigate, in addition to those defined in this specification.
When a browsing context is navigated to a new resource, the user agent must run the following
steps:
1. If the source browsing context (page 410) is not the same as the browsing context (page
354) being navigated, and the source browsing context (page 410) is not one of the
ancestor browsing contexts (page 355) of the browsing context (page 354) being
navigated, and the source browsing context (page 410) has its sandboxed navigation
browsing context flag (page 198) set, then abort these steps. The user agent may offer
to open the new resource in a new top-level browsing context (page 355) or in the
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top-level browsing context (page 355) of the source browsing context (page 410), at the
user's option, in which case the user agent must navigate (page 410) that designated
top-level browsing context (page 355) to the new resource as if the user had requested
it independently.
2. If the source browsing context (page 410) is the same as the browsing context (page
354) being navigated, and this browsing context has its seamless browsing context flag
(page 200) set, then find the nearest ancestor browsing context (page 355) that does
not have its seamless browsing context flag (page 200) set, and continue these steps as
if that browsing context (page 354) was the one that was going to be navigated (page
410) instead.
3. Cancel any preexisting attempt to navigate the browsing context (page 354).
4. Resolve (page 31) the URL (page 29) of the new resource. If that fails, the user agent
may abort these steps, or may treat the URL as identifying some sort of user-agent
defined error resource, which could display some sort of inline content, or could be
handled using a mechanism that does not affect the browsing context.
5. Fragment identifiers: If the absolute URL (page 33) of the new resource is the same as
the address of the active document (page 354) of the browsing context (page 354) being
navigated, ignoring any <fragment> (page 31) components of those URLs (page 29),
and the new resource is to be fetched using HTTP GET or equivalent, then navigate to
that fragment identifier (page 418) and abort these steps.
6. If the new resource is to be handled by displaying some sort of inline content, e.g. an
error message because the specified scheme is not one of the supported protocols, or an
inline prompt to allow the user to select a registered handler (page 382) for the given
scheme, then display the inline content (page 417) and abort these steps.
7. If the new resource is to be handled using a mechanism that does not affect the
browsing context, then abort these steps and proceed with that mechanism instead.
8. If the new resource is to be fetched using HTTP GET or equivalent, and if the browsing
context being navigated is a top-level browsing context (page 355), then check if there
are any application caches (page 387) that have a manifest (page 387) with the same
origin (page 366) as the URL in question, and that have this URL as one of their entries
(excluding entries marked as foreign (page 387)), and that already contain their
manifest, categorized as a manifest (page 387). If so, then the user agent must then
fetch the resource from the most appropriate application cache (page 388) of those that
match.
Otherwise, start fetching the new resource in the appropriate manner (e.g. performing
an HTTP GET or POST operation, or reading the file from disk, or executing script in the
case of a javascript: URL (page 369)). If this results in a redirect, return to the step
labeled "fragment identifiers" (page 411) with the new resource.
For example, imagine an HTML page with an associated application cache displaying
an image and a form, where the image is also used by several other application
caches. If the user right-clicks on the image and chooses "View Image", then the
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user agent could decide to show the image from any of those caches, but it is likely
that the most useful cache for the user would be the one that was used for the
aforementioned HTML page. On the other hand, if the user submits the form, and
the form does a POST submission, then the user agent will not use an application
cache at all; the submission will be made to the network.
9. Wait for one or more bytes to be available or for the user agent to establish that the
resource in question is empty. During this time, the user agent may allow the user to
cancel this navigation attempt or start other navigation attempts.
10. If the resource was not fetched from an application cache (page 387), and was to be
fetched using HTTP GET or equivalent, and its URL matches the opportunistic caching
namespace (page 397) of one or more application caches, and the user didn't cancel the
navigation attempt during the previous step, then:
↪ If the browsing context being navigated is a top-level browsing context

(page 355), and the navigation attempt failed (e.g. the server returned a
4xx or 5xx status code or equivalent, or there was a DNS error)
Let candidate be the fallback resource (page 387) specified for the opportunistic
caching namespace in question. If multiple application caches match, the user
agent must use the fallback of the most appropriate application cache (page
388) of those that match.
If candidate is not marked as foreign (page 387), then the user agent must
discard the failed load and instead continue along these steps using candidate
as the resource.
For the purposes of session history (and features that depend on session
history, e.g. bookmarking) the user agent must use the URL of the resource that
was requested (the one that matched the opportunistic caching namespace),
not the fallback resource. However, the user agent may indicate to the user that
the original page load failed, that the page used was a fallback resource, and
what the URL of the fallback resource actually is.
↪ Otherwise
Once the download is complete, if there were no errors and the user didn't
cancel the request, the user agent must cache the resource in all the application
caches that have a matching opportunistic caching namespace (page 397),
categorized as opportunistically cached entries (page 387). Meanwhile, the user
must continue along these steps.
11. If the document's out-of-band metadata (e.g. HTTP headers), not counting any type
information (page 63) (such as the Content-Type HTTP header), requires some sort of
processing that will not affect the browsing context, then perform that processing and
abort these steps.
Such processing might be triggered by, amongst other things, the

following:
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• HTTP status codes (e.g. 204 No Content or 205 Reset Content)
• HTTP Content-Disposition headers
• Network errors
12. Let type be the sniffed type of the resource (page 64).
13. If the user agent has been configured to process resources of the given type using some
mechanism other than rendering the content in a browsing context (page 354), then skip
this step. Otherwise, if the type is one of the following types, jump to the appropriate
entry in the following list, and process the resource as described there:
↪ "text/html"
Follow the steps given in the HTML document (page 414) section, and abort
these steps.
↪ Any type ending in "+xml"
↪ "application/xml"
↪ "text/xml"
Follow the steps given in the XML document (page 415) section. If that section
determines that the content is not to be displayed as a generic XML document,
then proceed to the next step in this overall set of steps. Otherwise, abort these
steps.
↪ "text/plain"
Follow the steps given in the plain text file (page 416) section, and abort these
steps.
↪ A supported image type

Follow the steps given in the image (page 416) section, and abort these steps.
↪ A type that will use an external application to render the content in the
browsing context (page 354)
Follow the steps given in the plugin (page 417) section, and abort these steps.
14. Non-document content: If, given type, the new resource is to be handled by displaying
some sort of inline content, e.g. a native rendering of the content, an error message
because the specified type is not supported, or an inline prompt to allow the user to
select a registered handler (page 382) for the given type, then display the inline content
(page 417) and abort these steps.
15. Otherwise, the document's type is such that the resource will not affect the browsing
context, e.g. because the resource is to be handed to an external application. Process
the resource appropriately.
Some of the sections below, to which the above algorithm defers in certain cases, require the
user agent to update the session history with the new page. When a user agent is required
413
to do this, it must follows the set of steps given below that is appropriate for the situation at
hand. From the point of view of any script, these steps must occur atomically.
1. pause for scripts
2. onbeforeunload, and if present set flag that we will kill document
3. onunload, and if present set flag that we will kill document
4. if flag is set: reset timers, empty event queue, kill any pending transactions, kill
XMLHttpRequests, etc, and set things up so that the document will be discarded asap
5. If the navigation was initiated for entry update of an entry
1. Replace the entry being updated with a new entry representing the new
resource and its Document object and related state. The user agent may
propagate state from the old entry to the new entry (e.g. scroll position).
2. Traverse the history (page 418) to the new entry.
Otherwise
1. Remove all the entries after the current entry (page 405) in the browsing
context (page 354)'s Document object's History object.
Note: This doesn't necessarily have to affect (page 410) the

user agent's user interface.
2. Append a new entry at the end of the History object representing the new
resource and its Document object and related state.
3. Traverse the history (page 418) to the new entry.
4. If the navigation was initiated with replacement enabled, remove the

entry immediately before the new current entry (page 405) in the session
history.
5.9.2 Page load processing model for HTML files
When an HTML document is to be loaded in a browsing context (page 354), the user agent must
create a Document object, mark it as being an HTML document (page 71), create an HTML parser
(page 518), associate it with the document, and begin to use the bytes provided for the
document as the input stream (page 521) for that parser.
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Note: The input stream (page 521) converts bytes into characters for use in
the tokeniser. This process relies, in part, on character encoding information
found in the real Content-Type metadata (page 63) of the resource; the
"sniffed type" is not used for this purpose.
When no more bytes are available, an EOF character is implied, which eventually causes a load
event to be fired.
After creating the Document object, but potentially before the page has finished parsing, the user
agent must update the session history with the new page (page 413).
Note: Application cache selection (page 397) happens in the HTML parser
(page 559).
5.9.3 Page load processing model for XML files
When faced with displaying an XML file inline, user agents must first create a Document object,
following the requirements of the XML and Namespaces in XML recommendations, RFC 3023,
DOM3 Core, and other relevant specifications. [XML] [XMLNS] [RFC3023] [DOM3CORE]
The actual HTTP headers and other metadata, not the headers as mutated or implied by the
algorithms given in this specification, are the ones that must be used when determining the
character encoding according to the rules given in the above specifications. Once the character
encoding is established, the document's character encoding (page 75) must be set to that
character encoding.
If the root element, as parsed according to the XML specifications cited above, is found to be an
html element with an attribute manifest, then, as soon as the element is inserted into the DOM,
the user agent must resolve (page 31) the value of that attribute, and if that is successful, must
run the application cache selection algorithm (page 397) with the resulting absolute URL (page
33) as the manifest URL. Otherwise, if the attribute is absent or resolving it fails, then as soon as
the root element is inserted into the DOM, the user agent must run the application cache
selection algorithm (page 399) with no manifest.
Note: Because the processing of the manifest attribute happens only once the
root element is parsed, any URLs referenced by processing instructions before
the root element (such as <?xml-styleesheet?> and <?xbl?> PIs) will be fetched
from the network and cannot be cached.
User agents may examine the namespace of the root Element node of this Document object to
perform namespace-based dispatch to alternative processing tools, e.g. determining that the
content is actually a syndication feed and passing it to a feed handler. If such processing is to
take place, abort the steps in this section, and jump to the next step (page 413) (labeled
"non-document content") in the navigate (page 410) steps above.
415
Otherwise, then, with the newly created Document, the user agents must update the session
history with the new page (page 413). User agents may do this before the complete document
has been parsed (thus achieving incremental rendering).
Error messages from the parse process (e.g. namespace well-formedness errors) may be
reported inline by mutating the Document.
5.9.4 Page load processing model for text files
When a plain text document is to be loaded in a browsing context (page 354), the user agent
should create a Document object, mark it as being an HTML document (page 71), create an HTML
parser (page 518), associate it with the document, act as if the tokeniser had emitted a start tag
token with the tag name "pre", set the tokenisation (page 534) stage's content model flag (page
534) to PLAINTEXT, and begin to pass the stream of characters in the plain text document to
that tokeniser.
The rules for how to convert the bytes of the plain text document into actual characters are
defined in RFC 2046, RFC 2646, and subsequent versions thereof. [RFC2046] [RFC2646]
The document's character encoding (page 75) must be set to the character encoding used to
decode the document.
Upon creation of the Document object, the user agent must run the application cache selection
algorithm (page 399) with no manifest.
When no more character are available, an EOF character is implied, which eventually causes a
load event to be fired.
After creating the Document object, but potentially before the page has finished parsing, the user
agent must update the session history with the new page (page 413).
User agents may add content to the head element of the Document, e.g. linking to stylesheet or
an XBL binding, providing script, giving the document a title, etc.
5.9.5 Page load processing model for images
When an image resource is to be loaded in a browsing context (page 354), the user agent should
create a Document object, mark it as being an HTML document (page 71), append an html
element to the Document, append a head element and a body element to the html element,
append an img to the body element, and set the src attribute of the img element to the address
of the image.
Then, the user agent must act as if it had stopped parsing (page 592).
After creating the Document object, but potentially before the page has finished fully loading, the
user agent must update the session history with the new page (page 413).
416
User agents may add content to the head element of the Document, or attributes to the img
element, e.g. to link to stylesheet or an XBL binding, to provide a script, to give the document a
title, etc.
5.9.6 Page load processing model for content that uses plugins
When a resource that requires an external resource to be rendered is to be loaded in a browsing

context (page 354), the user agent should create a Document object, mark it as being an HTML
document (page 71), append an html element to the Document, append a head element and a
body element to the html element, append an embed to the body element, and set the src
attribute of the img element to the address of the image.
Then, the user agent must act as if it had stopped parsing (page 592).
After creating the Document object, but potentially before the page has finished fully loading, the
user agent must update the session history with the new page (page 413).
User agents may add content to the head element of the Document, or attributes to the embed
element, e.g. to link to stylesheet or an XBL binding, or to give the document a title.
Note: If the sandboxed plugins browsing context flag (page 199) is set on the
browsing context (page 354), the synthesized embed element will fail to render
the content (page 202).
5.9.7 Page load processing model for inline content that doesn't have a DOM
When the user agent is to display a user agent page inline in a browsing context (page 354), the
user agent should create a Document object, mark it as being an HTML document (page 71), and
then either associate that Document with a custom rendering that is not rendered using the
normal Document rendering rules, or mutate that Document until it represents the content the
user agent wants to render.
Once the page has been set up, the user agent must act as if it had stopped parsing (page 592).
After creating the Document object, but potentially before the page has been completely set up,
the user agent must update the session history with the new page (page 413).
417
5.9.8 Navigating to a fragment identifier
When a user agent is supposed to navigate to a fragment identifier, then the user agent must
update the session history with the new page (page 413), where "the new page" has the same
Document as before but with the URL having the newly specified fragment identifier.
Part of that algorithm involves the user agent having to scroll to the fragment identifier (page
418), which is the important part for this step.
When the user agent is required to scroll to the fragment identifier, it must change the
scrolling position of the document, or perform some other action, such that the indicated part of
the document (page 418) is brought to the user's attention. If there is no indicated part, then the
user agent must not scroll anywhere.
The indicated part of the document is the one that the fragment identifier, if any, identifies.
The semantics of the fragment identifier in terms of mapping it to a specific DOM Node is
defined by the MIME type specification of the document's MIME Type (for example, the
processing of fragment identifiers for XML MIME types is the responsibility of RFC3023).
For HTML documents (and the text/html MIME type), the following processing model must be
followed to determine what the indicated part of the document (page 418) is.
1. Parse (page 29) the URL (page 29), and let fragid be the <fragment> (page 31)
component of the URL.
2. If fragid is the empty string, then the indicated part of the document is the top of the
document.
3. If there is an element in the DOM that has an ID exactly equal to fragid, then the first
such element in tree order is the indicated part of the document (page 418); stop the
algorithm here.
4. If there is an a element in the DOM that has a name attribute whose value is exactly
equal to fragid, then the first such element in tree order is the indicated part of the
document (page 418); stop the algorithm here.
5. Otherwise, there is no indicated part of the document.
For the purposes of the interaction of HTML with Selectors' :target pseudo-class, the target
element is the indicated part of the document (page 418), if that is an element; otherwise there
is no target element. [SELECTORS]
5.9.9 History traversal
When a user agent is required to traverse the history to a specified entry, the user agent
must act as follows:
1. If there is no longer a Document object for the entry in question, the user agent must
navigate (page 410) the browsing context to the location for that entry to perform an
entry update (page 414) of that entry, and abort these steps. The "navigate (page 410)"
418
algorithm reinvokes this "traverse" algorithm to complete the traversal, at which point
there is a Document object and so this step gets skipped. The navigation must be done
using the same source browsing context (page 410) as was used the first time this entry
was created.
2. If appropriate, update the current entry (page 405) in the browsing context (page 354)'s
Document object's History object to reflect any state that the user agent wishes to
persist.
For example, some user agents might want to persist the scroll position, or the
values of form controls.
3. If the specified entry has a different Document object than the current entry (page 405)
then the user agent must run the following substeps:
1. freeze any timers, intervals, XMLHttpRequests, database transactions, etc
2. The user agent must move any properties that have been added to the browsing
context's default view's Window object to the active document (page 354)'s
Document's list of added properties (page 360).
3. If the browsing context is a top-level browsing context (page 355) (and not an
auxiliary browsing context (page 356)), and the origin (page 363) of the
Document of the specified entry is not the same (page 366) as the origin (page
363) of the Document of the current entry (page 405), then the following
sub-sub-steps must be run:
1. The current browsing context name (page 357) must be stored with all
the entries in the history that are associated with Document objects with
the same origin (page 366) as the active document (page 354) and that
are contiguous with the current entry (page 405).
2. The browsing context's browsing context name (page 357) must be
unset.
4. The user agent must make the specified entry's Document object the active
document (page 354) of the browsing context (page 354). (If it is a top-level
browsing context (page 355), this might change (page 387) which application
cache (page 387) it is associated with.)
5. If the specified entry has a browsing context name (page 357) stored with it,
then the following sub-sub-steps must be run:
1. The browsing context's browsing context name (page 357) must be set
to the name stored with the specified entry.
2. Any browsing context name (page 357) stored with the entries in the
history that are associated with Document objects with the same origin
(page 366) as the new active document (page 354), and that are
contiguous with the specified entry, must be cleared.
419
6. The user agent must move any properties that have been added to the active
document (page 354)'s Document's list of added properties (page 360) to
browsing context's default view's Window object.
7. unfreeze any timers, intervals, XMLHttpRequests, database transactions, etc
4. If there are any entries with state objects between the last activated entry (page 405)
for the Document of the specified entry and the specified entry itself (not inclusive), then
the user agent must iterate through every entry between that last activated entry (page
405) and the specified entry, starting with the entry closest to the current entry (page
405), and ending with the one closest to the specified entry. For each entry, if the entry
is a state object, the user agent must activate the state object (page 408).
5. If the specified entry is a state object or the first entry for a Document, the user agent
must activate that entry (page 408).
6. If the specified entry has a URL that differs from the current entry (page 405)'s only by
its fragment identifier, and the two share the same Document object, then fire a simple
event (page 375) with the name hashchanged at the body element (page 76), and, if the
new URL has a fragment identifier, scroll to the fragment identifier (page 418).
7. User agents may also update other aspects of the document view when the location
changes in this way, for instance the scroll position, values of form fields, etc.
8. The current entry (page 405) is now the specified entry.
how does the changing of the global attributes affect .watch() when seen from other
Windows?
5.10 Structured client-side storage
5.10.1 Storing name/value pairs

This specification introduces two related mechanisms, similar to HTTP session cookies, for
storing structured data on the client side. [RFC2109] [RFC2965]
The first is designed for scenarios where the user is carrying out a single transaction, but could
be carrying out multiple transactions in different windows at the same time.
Cookies don't really handle this case well. For example, a user could be buying plane tickets in
two different windows, using the same site. If the site used cookies to keep track of which ticket
the user was buying, then as the user clicked from page to page in both windows, the ticket
currently being purchased would "leak" from one window to the other, potentially causing the
user to buy two tickets for the same flight without really noticing.
420
To address this, this specification introduces the sessionStorage DOM attribute. Sites can add
data to the session storage, and it will be accessible to any page from the same site opened in
that window.
For example, a page could have a checkbox that the user ticks to indicate that he wants
insurance:
<label>
<input type="checkbox" onchange="sessionStorage.insurance = checked">
I want insurance on this trip.
</label>
A later page could then check, from script, whether the user had checked the checkbox or
not:
if (sessionStorage.insurance) { ... }
If the user had multiple windows opened on the site, each one would have its own individual
copy of the session storage object.
The second storage mechanism is designed for storage that spans multiple windows, and lasts
beyond the current session. In particular, Web applications may wish to store megabytes of user
data, such as entire user-authored documents or a user's mailbox, on the client side for
performance reasons.
Again, cookies do not handle this case well, because they are transmitted with every request.
The localStorage DOM attribute is used to access a page's local storage area.
The site at example.com can display a count of how many times the user has loaded its
page by putting the following at the bottom of its page:
<p>
You have viewed this page
<span id="count">an untold number of</span>
time(s).
</p>
<script>
if (!localStorage.pageLoadCount)
localStorage.pageLoadCount = 0;
localStorage.pageLoadCount = parseInt(localStorage.pageLoadCount, 10) +
1;
document.getElementById('count').textContent =
localStorage.pageLoadCount;
</script>
Each site has its own separate storage area.
Storage areas (both session storage and local storage) store strings. To store structured data in
a storage area, you must first convert it to a string.
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5.10.1.2. The Storage interface
interface Storage {
[IndexGetter] DOMString key(in unsigned long index);
[NameGetter] DOMString getItem(in DOMString key);
[NameSetter] void setItem(in DOMString key, in DOMString data);
[XXX] void removeItem(in DOMString key);
void clear();
};
Each Storage object provides access to a list of key/value pairs, which are sometimes called
items. Keys and values are strings. Any string (including the empty string) is a valid key.
Note: To store more structured data, authors may consider using the SQL
interfaces (page 426) instead.
Each Storage object is associated with a list of key/value pairs when it is created, as defined in
the sections on the sessionStorage and localStorage attributes. Multiple separate objects
implementing the Storage interface can all be associated with the same list of key/value pairs
simultaneously.
The length attribute must return the number of key/value pairs currently present in the list
associated with the object.
The key(n) method must return the name of the nth key in the list. The order of keys is
user-agent defined, but must be consistent within an object between changes to the number of
keys. (Thus, adding (page 422) or removing (page 423) a key may change the order of the keys,
but merely changing the value of an existing key must not.) If n is less than zero or greater than
or equal to the number of key/value pairs in the object, then this method must raise an
INDEX_SIZE_ERR exception.
The getItem(key) method must return the current value associated with the given key. If the
given key does not exist in the list associated with the object then this method must return null.
The setItem(key, value) method must first check if a key/value pair with the given key
already exists in the list associated with the object.
If it does not, then a new key/value pair must be added to the list, with the given key and value.
If the given key does exist in the list, then it must have its value updated to the value given in
the value argument.
If it couldn't set the new value, the method must raise an INVALID_ACCESS_ERR exception.
(Setting could fail if, e.g., the user has disabled storage for the domain, or if the quota has been
exceeded.)
422
The removeItem(key) method must cause the key/value pair with the given key to be removed
from the list associated with the object, if it exists. If no item with that key exists, the method
must do nothing.
The setItem() and removeItem() methods must be atomic with respect to failure. That is,
changes to the data storage area must either be successful, or the data storage area must not
be changed at all.
The clear() method must atomically cause the list associated with the object to be emptied of
all key/value pairs.
When the setItem(), removeItem(), and clear() methods are invoked, events are fired on
other HTMLDocument objects that can access the newly stored or removed data, as defined in the
sections on the sessionStorage and localStorage attributes.
5.10.1.3. The sessionStorage attribute
The sessionStorage attribute represents the set of storage areas specific to the current
top-level browsing context (page 355).
Each top-level browsing context (page 355) has a unique set of session storage areas, one for
each origin (page 363).
User agents should not expire data from a browsing context's session storage areas, but may do
so when the user requests that such data be deleted, or when the UA detects that it has limited
storage space, or for security reasons. User agents should always avoid deleting data while a
script that could access that data is running. When a top-level browsing context is destroyed
(and therefore permanently inaccessible to the user) the data stored in its session storage areas
can be discarded with it, as the API described in this specification provides no way for that data
to ever be subsequently retrieved.
Note: The lifetime of a browsing context can be unrelated to the lifetime of the
actual user agent process itself, as the user agent may support resuming
sessions after a restart.
When a new HTMLDocument is created, the user agent must check to see if the document's
top-level browsing context (page 355) has allocated a session storage area for that document's
origin (page 363). If it has not, a new storage area for that document's origin (page 363) must
be created.
The Storage object for the document's associated Window object's sessionStorage attribute
must then be associated with that origin (page 363)'s session storage area for that top-level
When a new top-level browsing context (page 355) is created by cloning an existing browsing
context (page 354), the new browsing context must start with the same session storage areas as
the original, but the two sets must from that point on be considered separate, not affecting each
other in any way.
423
When a new top-level browsing context (page 355) is created by a script in an existing browsing
context (page 354), or by the user following a link in an existing browsing context, or in some
other way related to a specific HTMLDocument, then the session storage area of the origin (page
363) of that HTMLDocument must be copied into the new browsing context when it is created.
From that point on, however, the two session storage areas must be considered separate, not
affecting each other in any way.
When the setItem(), removeItem(), and clear() methods are called on a Storage object x
that is associated with a session storage area, then in every HTMLDocument object whose Window
object's sessionStorage attribute's Storage object is associated with the same storage area,
other than x, a storage event must be fired, as described below (page 424).
5.10.1.4. The localStorage attribute
The localStorage object provides a Storage object for an origin (page 363).
User agents must have a set of local storage areas, one for each origin (page 363).
User agents should expire data from the local storage areas only for security reasons or when
requested to do so by the user. User agents should always avoid deleting data while a script that
could access that data is running. Data stored in local storage areas should be considered
potentially user-critical. It is expected that Web applications will use the local storage areas for
storing user-written documents.
When the localStorage attribute is accessed, the user agent must check to see if it has
allocated local storage area for the origin (page 363) of the browsing context (page 354) within
which the script is running. If it has not, a new storage area for that origin (page 363) must be
created.
The user agent must then create a Storage object associated with that origin's local storage
area, and return it.
When the setItem(), removeItem(), and clear() methods are called on a Storage object x
that is associated with a local storage area, then in every HTMLDocument object whose Window
object's localStorage attribute's Storage object is associated with the same storage area,
other than x, a storage event must be fired, as described below (page 424).
5.10.1.5. The storage event
The storage event is fired in an HTMLDocument when a storage area changes, as described in
the previous two sections (for session storage (page 424), for local storage (page 424)).
When this happens, the user agent must dispatch an event with the name storage, with no
namespace, which does not bubble but is cancelable, and which uses the StorageEvent, at the
body element (page 76) of each active (page 354) HTMLDocument object affected.
If the event is being fired due to an invocation of the setItem() or removeItem() methods, the
event must have its key attribute set to the name of the key in question, its oldValue attribute
424
set to the old value of the key in question, or null if the key is newly added, and its newValue
attribute set to the new value of the key in question, or null if the key was removed.
Otherwise, if the event is being fired due to an invocation of the clear() method, the event
must have its key, oldValue, and newValue attributes set to null.
In addition, the event must have its url attribute set to the address of the page whose Storage
object was affected, and its source attribute set to the Window object of the browsing context
(page 354) that that document is in, if the two documents are in the same unit of related
browsing contexts (page 357), or null otherwise.
5.10.1.5.1. Event definition
interface StorageEvent : Event {

readonly attribute DOMString key;
readonly attribute DOMString oldValue;
readonly attribute DOMString newValue;
readonly attribute DOMString url;
readonly attribute Window source;
void initStorageEvent(in DOMString typeArg, in boolean canBubbleArg, in
boolean cancelableArg, in DOMString keyArg, in DOMString oldValueArg, in
DOMString newValueArg, in DOMString urlArg, in Window sourceArg);
void initStorageEventNS(in DOMString namespaceURI, in DOMString typeArg,
in boolean canBubbleArg, in boolean cancelableArg, in DOMString keyArg, in
DOMString oldValueArg, in DOMString newValueArg, in DOMString urlArg, in
Window sourceArg);
};
The initStorageEvent() and initStorageEventNS() methods must initialise the event in a

[DOM3EVENTS]
The key attribute represents the key being changed.
The oldValue attribute represents the old value of the key being changed.
The newValue attribute represents the new value of the key being changed.
The url attribute represents the address of the document that changed the key.
The source attribute represents the Window that changed the key.
5.10.1.6. Threads
Multiple browsing contexts must be able to access the local storage areas simultaneously in a
predictable manner. Scripts must not be able to detect any concurrent script execution.
425
This is required to guarantee that the length attribute of a Storage object never changes while
a script is executing, other than in a way that is predictable by the script itself.
There are various ways of implementing this requirement. One is that if a script running in one
browsing context accesses a local storage area, the UA blocks scripts in other browsing contexts
when they try to access the local storage area for the same origin (page 366) until the first script
has executed to completion. (Similarly, when a script in one browsing context accesses its
session storage area, any scripts that have the same top level browsing context and the same
origin (page 366) would block when accessing their session storage area until the first script has
executed to completion.) Another (potentially more efficient but probably more complex)
implementation strategy is to use optimistic transactional script execution. This specification
does not require any particular implementation strategy, so long as the requirement above is
met.
5.10.2 Database storage

...
5.10.2.2. Databases
Each origin (page 363) has an associated set of databases. Each database has a name and a
current version. There is no way to enumerate or delete the databases available for a domain
from this API.
Note: Each database has one version at a time, a database can't exist in
multiple versions at once. Versions are intended to allow authors to manage
schema changes incrementally and non-destructively, and without running the
risk of old code (e.g. in another browser window) trying to write to a database
with incorrect assumptions.
The openDatabase() method returns a Database object. The method takes four arguments: a
database name, a database version, a display name, and an estimated size, in bytes, of the data
that will be stored in the database.
The openDatabase() method must use and create databases from the origin (page 363) of the
active document (page 354) of the browsing context (page 354) of the Window object on which
the method was invoked.
If the database version provided is not the empty string, and the database already exists but has
a different version, then the method must raise an INVALID_STATE_ERR exception.
The user agent may also raise a security exception (page 369) in case the request violates a
policy decision (e.g. if the user agent is configured to not allow the page to open databases).
426
Otherwise, if the database version provided is the empty string, or if the database doesn't yet
exist, or if the database exists and the version provided to the openDatabase() method is the
same as the current version associated with the database, then the method must return a
Database object representing the database that has the name that was given. If no such
database exists, it must be created first.
All strings including the empty string are valid database names. Database names are
case-sensitive.
Note: Implementations can support this even in environments that only

support a subset of all strings as database names by mapping database names
(e.g. using a hashing algorithm) to the supported set of names.
User agents are expected to use the display name and the estimated database size to optimize
the user experience. For example, a user agent could use the estimated size to suggest an initial
quota to the user. This allows a site that is aware that it will try to use hundreds of megabytes to
declare this upfront, instead of the user agent prompting the user for permission to increase the
quota every five megabytes.
interface Database {
void transaction(in SQLTransactionCallback callback);
void transaction(in SQLTransactionCallback callback, in
SQLTransactionErrorCallback errorCallback);
void transaction(in SQLTransactionCallback callback, in
SQLTransactionErrorCallback errorCallback, in VoidCallback
successCallback);
readonly attribute DOMString version;

void changeVersion(in DOMString oldVersion, in DOMString newVersion, in
SQLTransactionCallback callback, in SQLTransactionErrorCallback
errorCallback, in VoidCallback successCallback);
};
interface SQLTransactionCallback {
void handleEvent(in SQLTransaction transaction);
};
interface SQLTransactionErrorCallback {
void handleEvent(in SQLError error);
};
The transaction() method takes one or two arguments. When called, the method must
immediately return and then asynchronously run the transaction steps (page 431) with the
transaction callback being the first argument, the error callback being the second argument, if
any, the success callback being the third argument, if any, and with no preflight operation or
postflight operation.
427
The version that the database was opened with is the expected version of this Database
object. It can be the empty string, in which case there is no expected version — any version is
fine.
On getting, the version attribute must return the current version of the database (as opposed
to the expected version (page 428) of the Database object).
The changeVersion() method allows scripts to atomically verify the version number and change
it at the same time as doing a schema update. When the method is invoked, it must immediately
return, and then asynchronously run the transaction steps (page 431) with the transaction
callback being the third argument, the error callback being the fourth argument, the success
callback being the fifth argument, the preflight operation being the following:
1. Check that the value of the first argument to the changeVersion() method exactly
matches the database's actual version. If it does not, then the preflight operation fails.
...and the postflight operation being the following:
1. Change the database's actual version to the value of the second argument to the
changeVersion() method.
2. Change the Database object's expected version to the value of the second argument to
the changeVersion() method.
5.10.2.3. Executing SQL statements
The transaction() and changeVersion() methods invoke callbacks with SQLTransaction

objects.
typedef sequence<Object> ObjectArray;
interface SQLTransaction {
void executeSql(in DOMString sqlStatement);
void executeSql(in DOMString sqlStatement, in ObjectArray arguments);
void executeSql(in DOMString sqlStatement, in ObjectArray arguments, in
SQLStatementCallback callback);
void executeSql(in DOMString sqlStatement, in ObjectArray arguments, in
SQLStatementCallback callback, in SQLStatementErrorCallback errorCallback);
};
interface SQLStatementCallback {
void handleEvent(in SQLTransaction transaction, in SQLResultSet
resultSet);
};
Or should these ▶ interface SQLStatementErrorCallback {

arguments be the boolean handleEvent(in SQLTransaction transaction, in SQLError error);
other way around?
Either way we're };
inconsistent with
_something_. What
should we be
consistent with?
428
When the executeSql(sqlStatement, arguments, callback, errorCallback) method is
invoked, the user agent must run the following algorithm. (This algorithm is relatively simple and
doesn't actually execute any SQL — the bulk of the work is actually done as part of the
transaction steps (page 431).)
1. If the method was not invoked during the execution of a SQLTransactionCallback,

SQLStatementCallback, or SQLStatementErrorCallback then raise an
INVALID_STATE_ERR exception. (Calls from inside a SQLTransactionErrorCallback thus
raise an exception. The SQLTransactionErrorCallback handler is only called once a
transaction has failed, and no SQL statements can be added to a failed transaction.)
2. Parse the first argument to the method (sqlStatement) as an SQL statement, with the
exception that ? characters can be used in place of literals in the statement. [SQL]
3. Replace each ? placeholder with the value of the argument in the arguments array with
the same position. (So the first ? placeholder gets replaced by the first value in the
arguments array, and generally the nth ? placeholder gets replaced by the nth value in
the arguments array.)
If the second argument is omitted or null, then treat the arguments array as empty.
The result is the statement.
Implementation feedback is requested on what to do with arguments that are of types

that are not supported by the underlying SQL backend. For example, SQLite doesn't
support booleans, so what should the UA do if passed a boolean? The Gears team
suggests failing, not silently converting types.
4. If the syntax of sqlStatement is not valid (except for the use of ? characters in the place
of literals), or the statement uses features that are not supported (e.g. due to security
reasons), or the number of items in the arguments array is not equal to the number of ?
placeholders in the statement, or the statement cannot be parsed for some other
reason, then mark the statement as bogus.
5. If the Database object that the SQLTransaction object was created from has an
expected version (page 428) that is neither the empty string nor the actual version of
the database, then mark the statement as bogus. (Error code 2 (page 431).)
6. Queue up the statement in the transaction, along with the third argument (if any) as the
statement's result set callback and the fourth argument (if any) as the error callback.
The user agent must act as if the database was hosted in an otherwise completely empty
environment with no resources. For example, attempts to read from or write to the file system
will fail.
SQL inherently supports multiple concurrent connections. Authors should make appropriate use
of the transaction features to handle the case of multiple scripts interacting with the same
database simultaneously (as could happen if the same page was opened in two different
browsing contexts (page 354)).
429
User agents must consider statements that use the BEGIN, COMMIT, and ROLLBACK SQL features
as being unsupported (and thus will mark them as bogus), so as to not let these statements
interfere with the explicit transactions managed by the database API itself.
Note: A future version of this specification will probably define the exact SQL
subset required in more detail.
5.10.2.4. Database query results
The executeSql() method invokes its callback with a SQLResultSet object as an argument.
interface SQLResultSet {
readonly attribute int insertId;
readonly attribute int rowsAffected;
readonly attribute SQLResultSetRowList rows;
};
The insertId attribute must return the row ID of the row that the SQLResultSet object's SQL
statement inserted into the database, if the statement inserted a row. If the statement inserted
multiple rows, the ID of the last row must be the one returned. If the statement did not insert a
row, then the attribute must instead raise an INVALID_ACCESS_ERR exception.
The rowsAffected attribute must return the number of rows that were affected by the SQL
statement. If the statement did not affected any rows, then the attribute must return zero. For
"SELECT" statements, this returns zero (querying the database doesn't affect any rows).
The rows attribute must return a SQLResultSetRowList representing the rows returned, in the
order returned by the database. If no rows were returned, then the object will be empty (its
length will be zero).
interface SQLResultSetRowList {
[IndexGetter] DOMObject item(in unsigned long index);
};
SQLResultSetRowList objects have a length attribute that must return the number of rows it
represents (the number of rows returned by the database).
The item(index) attribute must return the row with the given index index. If there is no such
row, then the method must raise an INDEX_SIZE_ERR exception.
Each row must be represented by a native ordered dictionary data type. In the ECMAScript
binding, this must be Object. Each row object must have one property (or dictionary entry) per
column, with those properties enumerating in the order that these columns were returned by the
database. Each property must have the name of the column and the value of the cell, as they
were returned by the database.
430
5.10.2.5. Errors
Errors in the database API are reported using callbacks that have a SQLError object as one of
their arguments.
interface SQLError {
readonly attribute unsigned int code;
readonly attribute DOMString message;
};
The code DOM attribute must return the most appropriate code from the following table:
Code Situation
0 The transaction failed for reasons unrelated to the database itself and not covered by any other error code.
1 The statement failed for database reasons not covered by any other error code.
2 The statement failed because the expected version (page 428) of the database didn't match the actual
database version.
3 The statement failed because the data returned from the database was too large. The SQL "LIMIT" modifier
might be useful to reduce the size of the result set.
4 The statement failed because there was not enough remaining storage space, or the storage quota was
reached and the user declined to give more space to the database.
5 The statement failed because the transaction's first statement was a read-only statement, and a subsequent
statement in the same transaction tried to modify the database, but the transaction failed to obtain a write
lock before another transaction obtained a write lock and changed a part of the database that the former
transaction was depending upon.
6 An INSERT, UPDATE, or REPLACE statement failed due to a constraint failure. For example, because a row was
being inserted and the value given for the primary key column duplicated the value of an existing row.
We should define a more thorough list of codes. Implementation feedback is requested to

determine what codes are needed.
The message DOM attribute must return an error message describing the error encountered. The
message should be localized to the user's language.
5.10.2.6. Processing model
The transaction steps are as follows. These steps must be run asynchronously. These steps
are invoked with a transaction callback, optionally an error callback, optionally a success
callback, optionally a preflight operation, and optionally a postflight operation.
1. Open a new SQL transaction to the database, and create a SQLTransaction object that
represents that transaction.
2. If an error occurred in the opening of the transaction, jump to the last step.
3. If a preflight operation was defined for this instance of the transaction steps, run that. If
it fails, then jump to the last step. (This is basically a hook for the changeVersion()
method.)
431
4. Invoke the transaction callback with the aforementioned SQLTransaction object as its
only argument.
5. If the callback couldn't be called (e.g. it was null), or if the callback was invoked and
raised an exception, jump to the last step.
6. While there are any statements queued up in the transaction, perform the following
steps for each queued up statement in the transaction, oldest first. Each statement has
a statement, optionally a result set callback, and optionally an error callback.
1. If the statement is marked as bogus, jump to the "in case of error" steps below.
2. Execute the statement in the context of the transaction. [SQL]
3. If the statement failed, jump to the "in case of error" steps below.
4. Create a SQLResultSet object that represents the result of the statement.
5. If the statement has a result set callback, invoke it with the SQLTransaction
object as its first argument and the new SQLResultSet object as its second
argument.
6. If the callback was invoked and raised an exception, jump to the last step in the
overall steps.
7. Move on to the next statement, if any, or onto the next overall step otherwise.
In case of error (or more specifically, if the above substeps say to jump to the "in case of
error" steps), run the following substeps:
1. If the statement had an associated error callback, then invoke that error callback
with the SQLTransaction object and a newly constructed SQLError object that
represents the error that caused these substeps to be run as the two arguments,
respectively.
2. If the error callback returns false, then move on to the next statement, if any, or
onto the next overall step otherwise.
3. Otherwise, the error callback did not return false, or there was no error callback.
Jump to the last step in the overall steps.
7. If a postflight operation was defined for this instance of the transaction steps, run that. If
it fails, then jump to the last step. (This is basically a hook for the changeVersion()
method.)
8. Commit the transaction.
9. If an error occurred in the committing of the transaction, jump to the last step.
10. Invoke the success callback.
11. End these steps. The next step is only used when something goes wrong.
432
12. Call the error callback with a newly constructed SQLError object that represents the last
error to have occurred in this transaction. Rollback the transaction. Any still-pending
statements in the transaction are discarded.
5.10.3 Disk space
User agents should limit the total amount of space allowed for storage areas and databases.
User agents should guard against sites storing data in the storage areas or databases of
subdomains, e.g. storing up to the limit in a1.example.com, a2.example.com, a3.example.com,
etc, circumventing the main example.com storage limit.
User agents may prompt the user when quotas are reached, allowing the user to grant a site
more space. This enables sites to store many user-created documents on the user's computer,
for instance.
User agents should allow users to see how much space each domain is using.
A mostly arbitrary limit of five megabytes per domain is recommended. Implementation

feedback is welcome and will be used to update this suggestion in future.
5.10.4 Privacy
5.10.4.1. User tracking
A third-party advertiser (or any entity capable of getting content distributed to multiple sites)
could use a unique identifier stored in its local storage area or in its client-side database to track
a user across multiple sessions, building a profile of the user's interests to allow for highly
targeted advertising. In conjunction with a site that is aware of the user's real identity (for
example an e-commerce site that requires authenticated credentials), this could allow
oppressive groups to target individuals with greater accuracy than in a world with purely
anonymous Web usage.
There are a number of techniques that can be used to mitigate the risk of user tracking:
• Blocking third-party storage: user agents may restrict access to the localStorage and
database objects to scripts originating at the domain of the top-level document of the
browsing context (page 354), for instance denying access to the API for pages from
other domains running in iframes.
• Expiring stored data: user agents may automatically delete stored data after a period of
time.
For example, a user agent could treat third-party local storage areas as session-only
storage, deleting the data once the user had closed all the browsing contexts that could
access it.
433
This can restrict the ability of a site to track a user, as the site would then only be able to
track the user across multiple sessions when he authenticates with the site itself (e.g. by
making a purchase or logging in to a service).
However, this also puts the user's data at risk.
• Treating persistent storage as cookies: user agents should present the persistent
storage and database features to the user in a way that does not distinguish them from
HTTP session cookies. [RFC2109] [RFC2965]
This might encourage users to view persistent storage with healthy suspicion.
• Site-specific white-listing of access to local storage areas and databases: user agents
may allow sites to access session storage areas in an unrestricted manner, but require
the user to authorize access to local storage areas and databases.
• Origin (page 363)-tracking of persistent storage data: user agents may record the origins
of sites that contained content from third-party origins that caused data to be stored.
If this information is then used to present the view of data currently in persistent
storage, it would allow the user to make informed decisions about which parts of the
persistent storage to prune. Combined with a blacklist ("delete this data and prevent this
domain from ever storing data again"), the user can restrict the use of persistent storage
to sites that he trusts.
• Shared blacklists: user agents may allow users to share their persistent storage domain
blacklists.
This would allow communities to act together to protect their privacy.
While these suggestions prevent trivial use of these APIs for user tracking, they do not block it
altogether. Within a single domain, a site can continue to track the user during a session, and
can then pass all this information to the third party along with any identifying information
(names, credit card numbers, addresses) obtained by the site. If a third party cooperates with
multiple sites to obtain such information, a profile can still be created.
However, user tracking is to some extent possible even with no cooperation from the user agent
whatsoever, for instance by using session identifiers in URLs, a technique already commonly
used for innocuous purposes but easily repurposed for user tracking (even retroactively). This
information can then be shared with other sites, using using visitors' IP addresses and other
user-specific data (e.g. user-agent headers and configuration settings) to combine separate
sessions into coherent user profiles.
5.10.4.2. Cookie resurrection
If the user interface for persistent storage presents data in the persistent storage features
separately from data in HTTP session cookies, then users are likely to delete data in one and not
the other. This would allow sites to use the two features as redundant backup for each other,
defeating a user's attempts to protect his privacy.
434
5.10.5 Security
5.10.5.1. DNS spoofing attacks
Because of the potential for DNS spoofing attacks, one cannot guarantee that a host claiming to
be in a certain domain really is from that domain. To mitigate this, pages can use SSL. Pages
using SSL can be sure that only pages using SSL that have certificates identifying them as being
from the same domain can access their local storage areas and databases.
5.10.5.2. Cross-directory attacks
Different authors sharing one host name, for example users hosting content on geocities.com,
all share one persistent storage object and one set of databases. There is no feature to restrict
the access by pathname. Authors on shared hosts are therefore recommended to avoid using
the persistent storage features, as it would be trivial for other authors to read from and write to
the same storage area or database.
Note: Even if a path-restriction feature was made available, the usual DOM
scripting security model would make it trivial to bypass this protection and
access the data from any path.
5.10.5.3. Implementation risks
The two primary risks when implementing these persistent storage features are letting hostile
sites read information from other domains, and letting hostile sites write information that is then
read from other domains.
Letting third-party sites read data that is not supposed to be read from their domain causes
information leakage, For example, a user's shopping wishlist on one domain could be used by
another domain for targeted advertising; or a user's work-in-progress confidential documents
stored by a word-processing site could be examined by the site of a competing company.
Letting third-party sites write data to the storage areas of other domains can result in
information spoofing, which is equally dangerous. For example, a hostile site could add items to
a user's wishlist; or a hostile site could set a user's session identifier to a known ID that the
hostile site can then use to track the user's actions on the victim site.
Thus, strictly following the origin (page 363) model described in this specification is important
for user security.
5.10.5.4. SQL and user agents
User agent implementors are strongly encouraged to audit all their supported SQL statements
for security implications. For example, LOAD DATA INFILE is likely to pose security risks and
there is little reason to support it.
435
In general, it is recommended that user agents not support features that control how databases
are stored on disk. For example, there is little reason to allow Web authors to control the
character encoding used in the disk representation of the data, as all data in ECMAScript is
implicitly UTF-16.
5.10.5.5. SQL injection
Authors are strongly recommended to make use of the ? placeholder feature of the
executeSql() method, and to never construct SQL statements on the fly.
5.11 Links
5.11.1 Hyperlink elements
The a, area, and link elements can, in certain situations described in the definitions of those
elements, represent hyperlinks.
The href attribute on a hyperlink element must have a value that is a valid URL (page 29). This
URL is the destination resource of the hyperlink.
The href attribute on a and area elements is not required; when those
elements do not have href attributes they do not represent hyperlinks.
The href attribute on the link element is required, but whether a link element
represents a hyperlink or not depends on the value of the rel attribute of that
element.
The target attribute, if present, must be a valid browsing context name or keyword (page 357).
User agents use this name when following hyperlinks (page 437).
The ping attribute, if present, gives the URLs of the resources that are interested in being
notified if the user follows the hyperlink. The value must be a space separated list of one or
more valid URLs. The value is used by the user agent when following hyperlinks (page 437).
For a and area elements that represent hyperlinks, the relationship between the document
containing the hyperlink and the destination resource indicated by the hyperlink is given by the
value of the element's rel attribute, which must be a set of space-separated tokens (page 52).
The allowed values and their meanings (page 439) are defined below. The rel attribute has no
default value. If the attribute is omitted or if none of the values in the attribute are recognized
by the UA, then the document has no particular relationship with the destination resource other
than there being a hyperlink between the two.
The media attribute describes for which media the target document was designed. It is purely
advisory. The value must be a valid media query (page 25). [MQ] The default, if the media
attribute is omitted, is all.
436
The hreflang attribute on hyperlink elements, if present, gives the language of the linked
resource. It is purely advisory. The value must be a valid RFC 3066 language code. [RFC3066]
User agents must not consider this attribute authoritative — upon fetching the resource, user
agents must use only language information associated with the resource to determine its
language, not metadata included in the link to the resource.
The type attribute, if present, gives the MIME type of the linked resource. It is purely advisory.
The value must be a valid MIME type, optionally with parameters. [RFC2046] User agents must
not consider the type attribute authoritative — upon fetching the resource, user agents must
not use metadata included in the link to the resource to determine its type.
5.11.2 Following hyperlinks
When a user follows a hyperlink, the user agent must navigate (page 410) a browsing context
(page 354) to the URL (page 29) given by the href attribute of that hyperlink. In the case of
server-side image maps, the URL of the hyperlink must further have its hyperlink suffix
appended to it.
If the user indicated a specific browsing context when following the hyperlink, or if the user
agent is configured to follow hyperlinks by navigating a particular browsing context, then that
must be the browsing context that is navigated.
Otherwise, if the hyperlink element is an a or area element that has a target attribute, then the
browsing context that is navigated must be chosen by applying the rules for choosing a
browsing context given a browsing context name (page 357), using the value of the target
attribute as the browsing context name. If these rules result in the creation of a new browsing
context (page 354), it must be navigated with replacement enabled (page 414).
Otherwise, if the hyperlink element is a sidebar hyperlink (page 447) and the user agent
implements a feature that can be considered a secondary browsing context, such a secondary
browsing context may be selected as the browsing context to be navigated.
Otherwise, if the hyperlink element is an a or area element with no target attribute, but one of
the child nodes of the head element (page 75) is a base element with a target attribute, then
the browsing context that is navigated must be chosen by applying the rules for choosing a
browsing context given a browsing context name (page 357), using the value of the target
attribute of the first such base element as the browsing context name. If these rules result in the
creation of a new browsing context (page 354), it must be navigated with replacement enabled
(page 414).
Otherwise, the browsing context that must be navigated is the same browsing context as the
one which the hyperlink element itself is in.
The navigation must be done with the browsing context (page 354) that contains the Document
object with which the hyperlink's element in question is associated as the source browsing
context (page 410).
437
5.11.2.1. Hyperlink auditing
If an a or area hyperlink element has a ping attribute and the user follows the hyperlink, the
user agent must take the ping attribute's value, split that string on spaces, resolve (page 31)
each resulting token, and then should send a request (as described below) to each of the
resulting absolute URLs (page 33). (Tokens that fail to resolve are ignored.) This may be done in
parallel with the primary request, and is independent of the result of that request.
User agents should allow the user to adjust this behavior, for example in conjunction with a
setting that disables the sending of HTTP Referer headers. Based on the user's preferences,
UAs may either ignore (page 28) the ping attribute altogether, or selectively ignore URLs in the
list (e.g. ignoring any third-party URLs).
For URLs that are HTTP URLs, the requests must be performed using the POST method (with an
empty entity body in the request). All relevant cookie and HTTP authentication headers must be
included in the request. Which other headers are required depends on the URls involved.
↪ If both the address of the Document object containing the hyperlink being audited
and the ping URL have the same origin (page 366)
The request must include a Ping-From HTTP header with, as its value, the address of
the document containing the hyperlink, and a Ping-To HTTP header with, as its value,
the address of the absolute URL (page 33) of the target of the hyperlink. The request
must not include a Referer HTTP header.
↪ Otherwise, if the origins are different, but the document containing the hyperlink
being audited was not retrieved over an encrypted connection
The request must include a Referer HTTP header [sic] with, as its value, the location of
the document containing the hyperlink, a Ping-From HTTP header with the same value,
and a Ping-To HTTP header with, as its value, the address of the target of the hyperlink.
↪ Otherwise, the origins are different and the document containing the hyperlink
being audited was retrieved over an encrypted connection
The request must include a Ping-To HTTP header with, as its value, the address of the
target of the hyperlink. The request must neither include a Referer HTTP header nor
include a Ping-From HTTP header.
Note: To save bandwidth, implementors might also wish to consider omitting

optional headers such as Accept from these requests.
User agents must ignore any entity bodies returned in the responses, but must, unless otherwise
specified by the user, honor the HTTP headers (including, in particular, redirects and HTTP
cookie headers). [RFC2109] [RFC2965]
When the ping attribute is present, user agents should clearly indicate to the user that following
the hyperlink will also cause secondary requests to be sent in the background, possibly including
listing the actual target URLs.
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The ping attribute is redundant with pre-existing technologies like HTTP
redirects and JavaScript in allowing Web pages to track which off-site links are
most popular or allowing advertisers to track click-through rates.
However, the ping attribute provides these advantages to the user over those
alternatives:
• It allows the user to see the final target URL unobscured.
• It allows the UA to inform the user about the out-of-band notifications.
• It allows the paranoid user to disable the notifications without losing

the underlying link functionality.
• It allows the UA to optimize the use of available network bandwidth so

that the target page loads faster.
Thus, while it is possible to track users without this feature, authors are
encouraged to use the ping attribute so that the user agent can improve the
user experience.
5.11.3 Link types
The following table summarizes the link types that are defined by this specification. This table is
non-normative; the actual definitions for the link types are given in the next few sections.
In this section, the term referenced document refers to the resource identified by the element
representing the link, and the term current document refers to the resource within which the
element representing the link finds itself.
To determine which link types apply to a link, a, or area element, the element's rel attribute
must be split on spaces (page 52). The resulting tokens are the link types that apply to that
element.
Unless otherwise specified, a keyword must not be specified more than once per rel attribute.
Link type Effect on... Brief description

link a and
area
alternate Hyperlink (page Hyperlink Gives alternate representations of the current document.
104) (page 436)
archives Hyperlink (page Hyperlink Provides a link to a collection of records, documents, or other materials
104) (page 436) of historical interest.
author Hyperlink (page Hyperlink Gives a link to the current document's author.
104) (page 436)
bookmark not allowed Hyperlink Gives the permalink for the nearest ancestor section.
(page 436)
external not allowed Hyperlink Indicates that the referenced document is not part of the same site as
(page 436) the current document.
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Link type Effect on... Brief description
link a and
area
feed Hyperlink (page Hyperlink Gives the address of a syndication feed for the current document.
104) (page 436)
first Hyperlink (page Hyperlink Indicates that the current document is a part of a series, and that the
104) (page 436) first document in the series is the referenced document.
help Hyperlink (page Hyperlink Provides a link to context-sensitive help.
104) (page 436)
icon External not Imports an icon to represent the current document.
Resource (page allowed
104)
index Hyperlink (page Hyperlink Gives a link to the document that provides a table of contents or index
104) (page 436) listing the current document.
last Hyperlink (page Hyperlink Indicates that the current document is a part of a series, and that the
104) (page 436) last document in the series is the referenced document.
license Hyperlink (page Hyperlink Indicates that the current document is covered by the copyright license
104) (page 436) described by the referenced document.
next Hyperlink (page Hyperlink Indicates that the current document is a part of a series, and that the
104) (page 436) next document in the series is the referenced document.
nofollow not allowed Hyperlink Indicates that the current document's original author or publisher does
(page 436) not endorse the referenced document.
noreferrer not allowed Hyperlink Requires that the user agent not send an HTTP Referer header if the
(page 436) user follows the hyperlink.
pingback External not Gives the address of the pingback server that handles pingbacks to the
Resource (page allowed current document.
104)
prefetch External not Specifies that the target resource should be preemptively cached.
104)
prev Hyperlink (page Hyperlink Indicates that the current document is a part of a series, and that the
104) (page 436) previous document in the series is the referenced document.
search Hyperlink (page Hyperlink Gives a link to a resource that can be used to search through the
104) (page 436) current document and its related pages.
stylesheet External not Imports a stylesheet.
104)
sidebar Hyperlink (page Hyperlink Specifies that the referenced document, if retrieved, is intended to be
104) (page 436) shown in the browser's sidebar (if it has one).
tag Hyperlink (page Hyperlink Gives a tag (identified by the given address) that applies to the current
104) (page 436) document.
up Hyperlink (page Hyperlink Provides a link to a document giving the context for the current
104) (page 436) document.
Some of the types described below list synonyms for these values. These are to be handled as
specified by user agents, but must not be used in documents.
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5.11.3.1. Link type "alternate"
The alternate keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements. For link elements, if the
rel attribute does not also contain the keyword stylesheet, it creates a hyperlink (page 104);
but if it does also contain the keyword stylesheet, the alternate keyword instead modifies the
meaning of the stylesheet keyword in the way described for that keyword, and the rest of this
subsection doesn't apply.
The alternate keyword indicates that the referenced document is an alternate representation
of the current document.
The nature of the referenced document is given by the media, hreflang, and type attributes.
If the alternate keyword is used with the media attribute, it indicates that the referenced
document is intended for use with the media specified.
If the alternate keyword is used with the hreflang attribute, and that attribute's value differs
from the root element (page 27)'s language (page 84), it indicates that the referenced document
is a translation.
If the alternate keyword is used with the type attribute, it indicates that the referenced
document is a reformulation of the current document in the specified format.
The media, hreflang, and type attributes can be combined when specified with the alternate
keyword.
For example, the following link is a French translation that uses the PDF format:
<link rel=alternate type=application/pdf hreflang=fr href=manual-fr>
If the alternate keyword is used with the type attribute set to the value application/rss+xml
or the value application/atom+xml, then the user agent must treat the link as it would if it had
the feed keyword specified as well.
The alternate link relationship is transitive — that is, if a document links to two other
documents with the link type "alternate", then, in addition to implying that those documents
are alternative representations of the first document, it is also implying that those two
documents are alternative representations of each other.
5.11.3.2. Link type "archives"
The archives keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements. For link elements, it
creates a hyperlink (page 104).
The archives keyword indicates that the referenced document describes a collection of records,
documents, or other materials of historical interest.
A blog's index page could link to an index of the blog's past posts with rel="archives".
Synonyms: For historical reasons, user agents must also treat the keyword "archive" like the
archives keyword.
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5.11.3.3. Link type "author"
The author keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements. For link elements, it
For a and area elements, the author keyword indicates that the referenced document provides
further information about the author of the section that the element defining the hyperlink
applies (page 116) to.
For link elements, the author keyword indicates that the referenced document provides further
information about the author for the page as a whole.
Note: The "referenced document" can be, and often is, a mailto: URL giving
the e-mail address of the author. [MAILTO]
Synonyms: For historical reasons, user agents must also treat link, a, and area elements that
have a rev attribute with the value "made" as having the author keyword specified as a link
relationship.
5.11.3.4. Link type "bookmark"
The bookmark keyword may be used with a and area elements.
The bookmark keyword gives a permalink for the nearest ancestor article element of the
linking element in question, or of the section the linking element is most closely associated with
(page 129), if there are no ancestor article elements.
The following snippet has three permalinks. A user agent could determine which permalink
applies to which part of the spec by looking at where the permalinks are given.
...
<body>
<h1>Example of permalinks</h1>
<div id="a">
<h2>First example</h2>
<p><a href="a.html" rel="bookmark">This</a> permalink applies to
only the content from the first H2 to the second H2. The DIV isn't
exactly that section, but it roughly corresponds to it.</p>
</div>
<h2>Second example</h2>
<article id="b">
<p><a href="b.html" rel="bookmark">This</a> permalink applies to
the outer ARTICLE element (which could be, e.g., a blog post).</p>
<article id="c">
<p><a href="c.html" rel="bookmark">This</a> permalink applies to
the inner ARTICLE element (which could be, e.g., a blog comment).</p>
</article>
</article>
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</body>
...
5.11.3.5. Link type "external"
The external keyword may be used with a and area elements.
The external keyword indicates that the link is leading to a document that is not part of the site
that the current document forms a part of.
5.11.3.6. Link type "feed"
The feed keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements. For link elements, it creates a
hyperlink (page 104).
The feed keyword indicates that the referenced document is a syndication feed. If the
alternate link type is also specified, then the feed is specifically the feed for the current
document; otherwise, the feed is just a syndication feed, not necessarily associated with a
particular Web page.
The first link, a, or area element in the document (in tree order) that creates a hyperlink with
the link type feed must be treated as the default syndication feed for the purposes of feed
autodiscovery.
Note: The feed keyword is implied by the alternate link type in certain cases
(q.v.).
The following two link elements are equivalent: both give the syndication feed for the
current page:
<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" href="data.xml">

<link rel="feed alternate" href="data.xml">
The following extract offers various different syndication feeds:
<p>You can access the planets database using Atom feeds:</p>

<ul>
<li><a href="recently-visited-planets.xml" rel="feed">Recently Visited
Planets</a></li>
<li><a href="known-bad-planets.xml" rel="feed">Known Bad
Planets</a></li>
<li><a href="unexplored-planets.xml" rel="feed">Unexplored
Planets</a></li>
</ul>
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5.11.3.7. Link type "help"
The help keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements. For link elements, it creates a
For a and area elements, the help keyword indicates that the referenced document provides
further help information for the parent of the element defining the hyperlink, and its children.
In the following example, the form control has associated context-sensitive help. The user
agent could use this information, for example, displaying the referenced document if the
user presses the "Help" or "F1" key.
<p><label> Topic: <input name=topic> <a href="help/topic.html"

rel="help">(Help)</a></label></p>
For link elements, the help keyword indicates that the referenced document provides help for
the page as a whole.
5.11.3.8. Link type "icon"
The icon keyword may be used with link elements, for which it creates an external resource
link (page 104).
The specified resource is an icon representing the page or site, and should be used by the user
agent when representing the page in the user interface.
Icons could be auditory icons, visual icons, or other kinds of icons. If multiple icons are provided,
the user agent must select the most appropriate icon according to the type, media, and sizes
attributes. If there are multiple equally appropriate icons, user agents must use the last one
declared in tree order (page 28). If the user agent tries to use an icon but that icon is
determined, upon closer examination, to in fact be inappropriate (e.g. because it uses an
unsupported format), then the user agent must try the next-most-appropriate icon as
determined by the attributes.
There is no default type for resources given by the icon keyword. However, for the purposes of
determining the type of the resource (page 105), user agents must expect the resource to be an
image.
The sizes attribute gives the sizes of icons for visual media.
If specified, the attribute must have a value that is an unordered set of unique space-separated
tokens (page 52). The values must all be either any or a value that consists of two valid
non-negative integers (page 37) that do not have a leading U+0030 DIGIT ZERO (0) character
and that are separated by a single U+0078 LATIN SMALL LETTER X character.
The keywords represent icon sizes.
To parse and process the attribute's value, the user agent must first split the attribute's value on
spaces (page 52), and must then parse each resulting keyword to determine what it represents.
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The any keyword represents that the resource contains a scalable icon, e.g. as provided by an
SVG image.
Other keywords must be further parsed as follows to determine what they represent:
• If the keyword doesn't contain exactly one U+0078 LATIN SMALL LETTER X character,
then this keyword doesn't represent anything. Abort these steps for that keyword.
• Let width string be the string before the "x".
• Let height string be the string after the "x".
• If either width string or height string start with a U+0030 DIGIT ZERO (0) character or
contain any characters other than characters in the range U+0030 DIGIT ZERO (0) to
U+0039 DIGIT NINE (9), then this keyword doesn't represent anything. Abort these steps
for that keyword.
• Apply the rules for parsing non-negative integers (page 37) to width string to obtain
width.
• Apply the rules for parsing non-negative integers (page 37) to height string to obtain
height.
• The keyword represents that the resource contains a bitmap icon with a width of width
device pixels and a height of height device pixels.
The keywords specified on the sizes attribute must not represent icon sizes that are not
actually available in the linked resource.
If the attribute is not specified, then the user agent must assume that the given icon is
appropriate, but less appropriate than an icon of a known and appropriate size.
The following snippet shows the top part of an application with several icons.
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
<title>lsForums — Inbox</title>
<link rel=icon href=favicon.png sizes="16x16">
<link rel=icon href=windows.ico sizes="32x32 48x48">
<link rel=icon href=mac.icns sizes="128x128 512x512 8192x8192
32768x32768">
<link rel=icon href=iphone.png sizes="59x60">
<link rel=icon href=gnome.svg sizes="any">
<link rel=stylesheet href=lsforums.css>
<script src=lsforums.js></script>
<meta name=application-name content="lsForums">
</head>
<body>
...
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5.11.3.9. Link type "license"
The license keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements. For link elements, it
The license keyword indicates that the referenced document provides the copyright license
terms under which the current document is provided.
Synonyms: For historical reasons, user agents must also treat the keyword "copyright" like the
license keyword.
5.11.3.10. Link type "nofollow"
The nofollow keyword may be used with a and area elements.
The nofollow keyword indicates that the link is not endorsed by the original author or publisher
of the page, or that the link to the referenced document was included primarily because of a
commercial relationship between people affiliated with the two pages.
5.11.3.11. Link type "noreferrer"
The noreferrer keyword may be used with a and area elements.
If a user agent follows a link defined by an a or area element that has the noreferrer keyword,
the user agent must not include a Referer HTTP header (or equivalent for other protocols) in the
request.
5.11.3.12. Link type "pingback"
The pingback keyword may be used with link elements, for which it creates an external
resource link (page 104).
For the semantics of the pingback keyword, see the Pingback 1.0 specification. [PINGBACK]
5.11.3.13. Link type "prefetch"
The prefetch keyword may be used with link elements, for which it creates an external
resource link (page 104).
The prefetch keyword indicates that preemptively fetching and caching the specified resource
is likely to be beneficial, as it is highly likely that the user will require this resource.
There is no default type for resources given by the prefetch keyword.
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5.11.3.14. Link type "search"
The search keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements. For link elements, it
The search keyword indicates that the referenced document provides an interface specifically
for searching the document and its related resources.
Note: OpenSearch description documents can be used with link elements and
the search link type to enable user agents to autodiscover search interfaces.
[OPENSEARCH]
5.11.3.15. Link type "stylesheet"
The stylesheet keyword may be used with link elements, for which it creates an external
resource link (page 104) that contributes to the styling processing model (page 115).
The specified resource is a resource that describes how to present the document. Exactly how
the resource is to be processed depends on the actual type of the resource.
If the alternate keyword is also specified on the link element, then the link is an alternative
stylesheet.
The default type for resources given by the stylesheet keyword is text/css.
Quirk: If the document has been set to quirks mode (page 74) and the Content-Type metadata
(page 63) of the external resource is not a supported style sheet type, the user agent must
instead assume it to be text/css.
5.11.3.16. Link type "sidebar"
The sidebar keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements. For link elements, it
The sidebar keyword indicates that the referenced document, if retrieved, is intended to be
shown in a secondary browsing context (page 356) (if possible), instead of in the current
A hyperlink element (page 436) with with the sidebar keyword specified is a sidebar
hyperlink.
5.11.3.17. Link type "tag"
The tag keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements. For link elements, it creates a
The tag keyword indicates that the tag that the referenced document represents applies to the
current document.
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5.11.3.18. Hierarchical link types
Some documents form part of a hierarchical structure of documents.
A hierarchical structure of documents is one where each document can have various
subdocuments. The document of which a document is a subdocument is said to be the
document's parent. A document with no parent forms the top of the hierarchy.
A document may be part of multiple hierarchies.
5.11.3.18.1. Link type "index"
The index keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements. For link elements, it creates
a hyperlink (page 104).
The index keyword indicates that the document is part of a hierarchical structure, and that the
link is leading to the document that is the top of the hierarchy. It conveys more information
when used with the up keyword (q.v.).
Synonyms: For historical reasons, user agents must also treat the keywords "top", "contents",
and "toc" like the index keyword.
5.11.3.18.2. Link type "up"
The up keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements. For link elements, it creates a
The up keyword indicates that the document is part of a hierarchical structure, and that the link
is leading to the document that is the parent of the current document.
The up keyword may be repeated within a rel attribute to indicate the hierarchical distance
from the current document to the referenced document. Each occurrence of the keyword
represents one further level. If the index keyword is also present, then the number of up
keywords is the depth of the current page relative to the top of the hierarchy. Only one link is
created for the set of one or more up keywords and, if present, the index keyword.
If the page is part of multiple hierarchies, then they should be described in different paragraphs
(page 92). User agents must scope any interpretation of the up and index keywords together
indicating the depth of the hierarchy to the paragraph (page 92) in which the link finds itself, if
any, or to the document otherwise.
When two links have both the up and index keywords specified together in the same scope and
contradict each other by having a different number of up keywords, the link with the greater
number of up keywords must be taken as giving the depth of the document.
This can be used to mark up a navigation style sometimes known as bread crumbs. In the
following example, the current page can be reached via two paths.
<nav>
<p>
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<a href="/" rel="index up up up">Main</a> >
<a href="/products/" rel="up up">Products</a> >
<a href="/products/dishwashers/" rel="up">Dishwashers</a> >
<a>Second hand</a>
</p>
<p>
<a href="/" rel="index up up">Main</a> >
<a href="/second-hand/" rel="up">Second hand</a> >
<a>Dishwashers</a>
</p>
</nav>
Note: The relList DOM attribute (e.g. on the a element) does not currently
represent multiple up keywords (the interface hides duplicates).
5.11.3.19. Sequential link types
Some documents form part of a sequence of documents.
A sequence of documents is one where each document can have a previous sibling and a next
sibling. A document with no previous sibling is the start of its sequence, a document with no
next sibling is the end of its sequence.
A document may be part of multiple sequences.
5.11.3.19.1. Link type "first"
The first keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements. For link elements, it creates
a hyperlink (page 104).
The first keyword indicates that the document is part of a sequence, and that the link is
leading to the document that is the first logical document in the sequence.
Synonyms: For historical reasons, user agents must also treat the keywords "begin" and
"start" like the first keyword.
5.11.3.19.2. Link type "last"
The last keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements. For link elements, it creates a
The last keyword indicates that the document is part of a sequence, and that the link is leading
to the document that is the last logical document in the sequence.
Synonyms: For historical reasons, user agents must also treat the keyword "end" like the last
keyword.
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5.11.3.19.3. Link type "next"
The next keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements. For link elements, it creates a
The next keyword indicates that the document is part of a sequence, and that the link is leading
to the document that is the next logical document in the sequence.
5.11.3.19.4. Link type "prev"
The prev keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements. For link elements, it creates a
The prev keyword indicates that the document is part of a sequence, and that the link is leading
to the document that is the previous logical document in the sequence.
Synonyms: For historical reasons, user agents must also treat the keyword "previous" like the
prev keyword.
5.11.3.20. Other link types
Other than the types defined above, only types defined as extensions in the WHATWG Wiki
RelExtensions page may be used with the rel attribute on link, a, and area elements.
[WHATWGWIKI]
Anyone is free to edit the WHATWG Wiki RelExtensions page at any time to add a type.
Extension types must be specified with the following information:
Keyword
The actual value being defined. The value should not be confusingly similar to any other
defined value (e.g. differing only in case).
Effect on... link

not allowed
The keyword is not allowed to be specified on link elements.
Hyperlink
The keyword may be specified on a link element; it creates a hyperlink link (page
104).
External Resource
The keyword may be specified on a link element; it creates a external resource link
(page 104).
Effect on... a and area

not allowed
The keyword is not allowed to be specified on a and area elements.
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Hyperlink
The keyword may be specified on a and area elements.
Brief description
A short description of what the keyword's meaning is.
Link to more details

A link to a more detailed description of the keyword's semantics and requirements. It could
be another page on the Wiki, or a link to an external page.
Synonyms
A list of other keyword values that have exactly the same processing requirements. Authors
must not use the values defined to be synonyms, they are only intended to allow user
agents to support legacy content.
Status
Proposal
The keyword has not received wide peer review and approval. It is included for
completeness because pages use the keyword. Pages should not use the keyword.
Accepted
The keyword has received wide peer review and approval. It has a specification that
unambiguously defines how to handle pages that use the keyword, including when they
use them in incorrect ways. Pages may use the keyword.
Rejected
The keyword has received wide peer review and it has been found to have significant
problems. Pages must not use the keyword. When a keyword has this status, the "Effect
on... link" and "Effect on... a and area" information should be set to "not allowed".
If a keyword is added with the "proposal" status and found to be redundant with existing
values, it should be removed and listed as a synonym for the existing value. If a keyword is
added with the "proposal" status and found to be harmful, then it should be changed to
"rejected" status, and its "Effect on..." information should be changed accordingly.
Conformance checkers must use the information given on the WHATWG Wiki RelExtensions page
to establish if a value not explicitly defined in this specification is allowed or not. When an author
uses a new type not defined by either this specification or the Wiki page, conformance checkers
should offer to add the value to the Wiki, with the details described above, with the "proposal"
status.
This specification does not define how new values will get approved. It is expected that the Wiki
will have a community that addresses this.
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6. User Interaction
This section describes various features that allow authors to enable users to edit documents and
parts of documents interactively.
6.1 Introduction
Would be nice to explain how these features work together.
6.2 The irrelevant attribute
All elements may have the irrelevant content attribute set. The irrelevant attribute is a
boolean attribute (page 37). When specified on an element, it indicates that the element is not
yet, or is no longer, relevant. User agents should not render elements that have the irrelevant
attribute specified.
In the following skeletal example, the attribute is used to hide the Web game's main screen
until the user logs in:
<h1>The Example Game</h1>

<section id="login">
<h2>Login</h2>
<form>
...

</form>
<script>
function login() {
// switch screens
document.getElementById('login').irrelevant = true;
document.getElementById('game').irrelevant = false;
}
</script>
</section>
<section id="game" irrelevant>
...
</section>
The irrelevant attribute must not be used to hide content that could legitimately be shown in
another presentation. For example, it is incorrect to use irrelevant to hide panels in a tabbed
dialog, because the tabbed interface is merely a kind of overflow presentation — showing all the
form controls in one big page with a scrollbar would be equivalent, and no less correct.
452
Elements in a section hidden by the irrelevant attribute are still active, e.g. scripts and form
controls in such sections still render execute and submit respectively. Only their presentation to
the user changes.
The irrelevant DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the content attribute of the same name.
6.3 Activation
The click() method must fire a click event (page 374) at the element, whose default action is
the firing of a further DOMActivate event at the same element, whose own default action is to go
through all the elements the DOMActivate event bubbled through (starting at the target node
and going towards the Document node), looking for an element with an activation behavior (page
26); the first element, in reverse tree order, to have one, must have its activation behavior
executed.
6.4 Scrolling elements into view
The scrollIntoView([top]) method, when called, must cause the element on which the
method was called to have the attention of the user called to it.
Note: In a speech browser, this could happen by having the current playback
position move to the start of the given element.
In visual user agents, if the argument is present and has the value false, the user agent should
scroll the element into view such that both the bottom and the top of the element are in the
viewport, with the bottom of the element aligned with the bottom of the viewport. If it isn't
possible to show the entire element in that way, or if the argument is omitted or is true, then the
user agent should instead align the top of the element with the top of the viewport. Visual user
agents should further scroll horizontally as necessary to bring the element to the attention of the
user.
Non-visual user agents may ignore the argument, or may treat it in some media-specific manner
most useful to the user.
6.5 Focus
When an element is focused, key events received by the document must be targeted at that
element. There may be no element focused; when no element is focused, key events received
by the document must be targetted at the body element (page 76).
User agents may track focus for each browsing context (page 354) or Document individually, or
may support only one focused elment per top-level browsing context (page 355) — user agents
should follow platform conventions in this regard.
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Which element(s) within a top-level browsing context (page 355) currently has focus must be
independent of whether or not the top-level browsing context (page 355) itself has the system
focus.
6.5.1 Focus management
The focusing steps are as follows:
1. If focusing the element will remove the focus from another element, then run the
unfocusing steps (page 454) for that element.
2. Make the element the currently focused element in its top-level browsing context (page
355).
Some elements, most notably area, can correspond to more than one distinct focusable
area. If a particular area was indicated when the element was focused, then that is the
area that must get focus; otherwise, e.g. when using the focus() method, the first such
region in tree order is the one that must be focused.
3. Fire a simple event (page 375) that doesn't bubble called focus at the element.
User agents must run the focusing steps (page 454) for an element whenever the user moves
the focus to a focusable (page 456) element.
The unfocusing steps are as follows:
1. Unfocus the element.
2. Fire a simple event (page 375) that doesn't bubble called blur at the element.
User agents should run the unfocusing steps (page 454) for an element whenever the user
moves the focus away from any focusable (page 456) element.
The focus() method, when invoked, must run the following algorithm:
1. If the element is marked as locked for focus (page 454), then abort these steps.
2. If the element is not focusable (page 456), then abort these steps.
3. Mark the element as locked for focus.
4. If the element is not already focused, run the focusing steps (page 454) for the element.
5. Unmark the element as locked for focus (page 454).
The blur() method, when invoked, should run the unfocusing steps (page 454) for the element.
User agents may selectively or uniformly ignore calls to this method for usability reasons.
The activeElement attribute must return the element in the document that is focused. If no
element in the Document is focused, this must return the body element (page 76).
454
The hasFocus() method must return true if the document, one of its nested browsing contexts
(page 354), or any element in the document or its browsing contexts currently has the system
focus.
6.5.2 Sequential focus navigation
The tabindex content attribute specifies whether the element is focusable, whether it can be
reached using sequential focus navigation, and the relative order of the element for the
purposes of sequential focus navigation. The name "tab index" comes from the common use of
the "tab" key to navigate through the focusable elements. The term "tabbing" refers to moving
forward through the focusable elements that can be reached using sequential focus navigation.
The tabindex attribute, if specified, must have a value that is a valid integer (page 38).
If the attribute is specified, it must be parsed using the rules for parsing integers (page 38). The
attribute's values have the following meanings:
If the attribute is omitted or parsing the value returns an error

The user agent should follow platform conventions to determine if the element is to be
focusable and, if so, whether the element can be reached using sequential focus navigation,
and if so, what its relative order should be.
If the value is a negative integer

The user agent must allow the element to be focused, but should not allow the element to
be reached using sequential focus navigation.
If the value is a zero

The user agent must allow the element to be focused, should allow the element to be
reached using sequential focus navigation, and should follow platform conventions to
determine the element's relative order.
If the value is greater than zero

The user agent must allow the element to be focused, should allow the element to be
reached using sequential focus navigation, and should place the element in the sequential
focus navigation order so that it is:
• before any focusable element whose tabindex attribute has been omitted or whose
value, when parsed, returns an error,
• before any focusable element whose tabindex attribute has a value equal to or less
than zero,
• after any element whose tabindex attribute has a value greater than zero but less
than the value of the tabindex attribute on the element,
• after any element whose tabindex attribute has a value equal to the value of the
tabindex attribute on the element but that is earlier in the document in tree order
(page 28) than the element,
455
• before any element whose tabindex attribute has a value equal to the value of the
tabindex attribute on the element but that is later in the document in tree order
(page 28) than the element, and
• before any element whose tabindex attribute has a value greater than the value of
the tabindex attribute on the element.
An element is focusable if the tabindex attribute's definition above defines the element to be
focusable and the element is being rendered.
When an element is focused, the element matches the CSS :focus pseudo-class and key events
are dispatched on that element in response to keyboard input.
The tabIndex DOM attribute must reflect (page 55) the value of the tabIndex content attribute.
If the attribute is not present, or parsing its value returns an error, then the DOM attribute must
return 0 for elements that are focusable and −1 for elements that are not focusable.
6.6 The text selection APIs
Every browsing context (page 354) has a selection. The selection can be empty, and the
selection can have more than one range (a disjointed selection). The user should be able to
change the selection. User agents are not required to let the user select more than one range,
and may collapse multiple ranges in the selection to a single range when the user interacts with
the selection. (But, of course, the user agent may let the user create selections with multiple
ranges.)
This one selection must be shared by all the content of the browsing context (though not by
nested browsing contexts (page 354)), including any editing hosts in the document. (Editing
hosts that are not inside a document cannot have a selection.)
If the selection is empty (collapsed, so that it has only one segment and that segment's start
and end points are the same) then the selection's position should equal the caret position. When
the selection is not empty, this specification does not define the caret position; user agents
should follow platform conventions in deciding whether the caret is at the start of the selection,
the end of the selection, or somewhere else.
On some platforms (such as those using Wordstar editing conventions), the caret position is
totally independent of the start and end of the selection, even when the selection is empty. On
such platforms, user agents may ignore the requirement that the cursor position be linked to the
position of the selection altogether.
Mostly for historical reasons, in addition to the browsing context (page 354)'s selection (page
456), each textarea and input element has an independent selection. These are the text field
selections.
User agents may selectively ignore attempts to use the API to adjust the selection made after
the user has modified the selection. For example, if the user has just selected part of a word, the
user agent could ignore attempts to use the API call to immediately unselect the selection
altogether, but could allow attempts to change the selection to select the entire word.
456
User agents may also allow the user to create selections that are not exposed to the API.
The datagrid and select elements also have selections, indicating which items have been
picked by the user. These are not discussed in this section.
Note: This specification does not specify how selections are presented to the
user. The Selectors specification, in conjunction with CSS, can be used to style
text selections using the ::selection pseudo-element. [SELECTORS] [CSS21]
6.6.1 APIs for the browsing context selection
The getSelection() method on the Window interface must return the Selection object
representing the selection (page 456) of that Window object's browsing context (page 354).
For historical reasons, the getSelection() method on the HTMLDocument interface must return
the same Selection object.
[Stringifies] interface Selection {

readonly attribute Node anchorNode;
readonly attribute long anchorOffset;
readonly attribute Node focusNode;
readonly attribute long focusOffset;
readonly attribute boolean isCollapsed;
void collapse(in Node parentNode, in long offset);
void collapseToStart();
void collapseToEnd();
void selectAllChildren(in Node parentNode);
void deleteFromDocument();
readonly attribute long rangeCount;
Range getRangeAt(in long index);
void addRange(in Range range);
void removeRange(in Range range);
void removeAllRanges();
};
The Selection interface is represents a list of Range objects. The first item in the list has index
0, and the last item has index count-1, where count is the number of ranges in the list.
[DOM2RANGE]
All of the members of the Selection interface are defined in terms of operations on the Range
objects represented by this object. These operations can raise exceptions, as defined for the
Range interface; this can therefore result in the members of the Selection interface raising
exceptions as well, in addition to any explicitly called out below.
The anchorNode attribute must return the value returned by the startContainer attribute of
the last Range object in the list, or null if the list is empty.
457
The anchorOffset attribute must return the value returned by the startOffset attribute of the
last Range object in the list, or 0 if the list is empty.
The focusNode attribute must return the value returned by the endContainer attribute of the
last Range object in the list, or null if the list is empty.
The focusOffset attribute must return the value returned by the endOffset attribute of the last
Range object in the list, or 0 if the list is empty.
The isCollapsed attribute must return true if there are zero ranges, or if there is exactly one
range and its collapsed attribute is itself true. Otherwise it must return false.
The collapse(parentNode, offset) method must raise a WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR DOM

exception if parentNode's ownerDocument is not the HTMLDocument object with which the
Selection object is associated. Otherwise it is, and the method must remove all the ranges in
the Selection list, then create a new Range object, add it to the list, and invoke its setStart()
and setEnd() methods with the parentNode and offset values as their arguments.
The collapseToStart() method must raise an INVALID_STATE_ERR DOM exception if there are
no ranges in the list. Otherwise, it must invoke the collapse() method with the
startContainer and startOffset values of the first Range object in the list as the arguments.
The collapseToEnd() method must raise an INVALID_STATE_ERR DOM exception if there are no
ranges in the list. Otherwise, it must invoke the collapse() method with the endContainer and
endOffset values of the last Range object in the list as the arguments.
The selectAllChildren(parentNode) method must invoke the collapse() method with the
parentNode value as the first argument and 0 as the second argument, and must then invoke
the selectNodeContents() method on the first (and only) range in the list with the parentNode
value as the argument.
The deleteFromDocument() method must invoke the deleteContents() method on each range
in the list, if any, from first to last.
The rangeCount attribute must return the number of ranges in the list.
The getRangeAt(index) method must return the indexth range in the list. If index is less than
zero or greater or equal to the value returned by the rangeCount attribute, then the method
must raise an INDEX_SIZE_ERR DOM exception.
The addRange(range) method must add the given range Range object to the list of selections,
at the end (so the newly added range is the new last range). Duplicates are not prevented; a
range may be added more than once in which case it appears in the list more than once, which
(for example) will cause stringification (page 459) to return the range's text twice.
The removeRange(range) method must remove the first occurrence of range in the list of
ranges, if it appears at all.
The removeAllRanges() method must remove all the ranges from the list of ranges, such that
the rangeCount attribute returns 0 after the removeAllRanges() method is invoked (and until a
new range is added to the list, either through this interface or via user interaction).
458
Objects implementing this interface must stringify to a concatenation of the results of invoking
the toString() method of the Range object on each of the ranges of the selection, in the order
they appear in the list (first to last).
In the following document fragment, the emphasised parts indicate the selection.
<p>The cute girl likes the <cite>Oxford English Dictionary</cite>.</p>
If a script invoked window.getSelection().toString(), the return value would be "the

Oxford English".
Note: The Selection interface has no relation to the DataGridSelection

interface.
6.6.2 APIs for the text field selections
When we define HTMLTextAreaElement and HTMLInputElement we will have to add the IDL
given below to both of their IDLs.
The input and textarea elements define four members in their DOM interfaces for handling
their text selection:
void select();
attribute unsigned long selectionStart;
attribute unsigned long selectionEnd;
void setSelectionRange(in unsigned long start, in unsigned long end);
These methods and attributes expose and control the selection of input and textarea text
fields.
The select() method must cause the contents of the text field to be fully selected.
The selectionStart attribute must, on getting, return the offset (in logical order) to the
character that immediately follows the start of the selection. If there is no selection, then it must
return the offset (in logical order) to the character that immediately follows the text entry
cursor.
On setting, it must act as if the setSelectionRange() method had been called, with the new
value as the first argument, and the current value of the selectionEnd attribute as the second
argument, unless the current value of the selectionEnd is less than the new value, in which
case the second argument must also be the new value.
The selectionEnd attribute must, on getting, return the offset (in logical order) to the character
that immediately follows the end of the selection. If there is no selection, then it must return the
offset (in logical order) to the character that immediately follows the text entry cursor.
459
On setting, it must act as if the setSelectionRange() method had been called, with the current
value of the selectionStart attribute as the first argument, and new value as the second
argument.
The setSelectionRange(start, end) method must set the selection of the text field to the
sequence of characters starting with the character at the startth position (in logical order) and
ending with the character at the (end-1)th position. Arguments greater than the length of the
value in the text field must be treated as pointing at the end of the text field. If end is less than
or equal to start then the start of the selection and the end of the selection must both be placed
immediately before the character with offset end. In UAs where there is no concept of an empty
selection, this must set the cursor to be just before the character with offset end.
To obtain the currently selected text, the following JavaScript suffices:
var selectionText = control.value.substring(control.selectionStart,

control.selectionEnd);
...where control is the input or textarea element.
Characters with no visible rendering, such as U+200D ZERO WIDTH JOINER, still count as
characters. Thus, for instance, the selection can include just an invisible character, and the text
insertion cursor can be placed to one side or another of such a character.
When these methods and attributes are used with input elements that are not displaying simple
text fields, they must raise an INVALID_STATE_ERR exception.
6.7 The contenteditable attribute
The contenteditable attribute is a common attribute. User agents must support this attribute
on all HTML elements (page 27).
The contenteditable attribute is an enumerated attribute (page 54) whose keywords are the
empty string, true, and false. The empty string and the true keyword map to the true state.
The false keyword maps to the false state. In addition, there is a third state, the inherit state,
which is the missing value default (and the invalid value default).
If an HTML element (page 27) has a contenteditable attribute set to the true state, or it has its
contenteditable attribute set to the inherit state and if its nearest ancestor HTML element
(page 27) with the contenteditable attribute set to a state other than the inherit state has its
attribute set to the true state, or if it and its ancestors all have their contenteditable attribute
set to the inherit state but the Document has designMode enabled, then the UA must treat the
element as editable (as described below).
Otherwise, either the HTML element (page 27) has a contenteditable attribute set to the false
state, or its contenteditable attribute is set to the inherit state and its nearest ancestor HTML
element (page 27) with the contenteditable attribute set to a state other than the inherit state
has its attribute set to the false state, or all its ancestors have their contenteditable attribute
set to the inherit state and the Document itself has designMode disabled; either way, the
element is not editable.
460
The contentEditable DOM attribute, on getting, must return the string "true" if the content
attribute is set to the true state, false" if the content attribute is set to the false state, and
"inherit" otherwise. On setting, if the new value is case-insensitively equal to the string
"inherit" then the content attribute must be removed, if the new value is case-insensitively
equal to the string "true" then the content attribute must be set to the string "true", if the new
value is case-insensitively equal to the string "false" then the content attribute must be set to
the string "false", and otherwise the attribute setter must raise a SYNTAX_ERR exception.
The isContentEditable DOM attribute, on getting, must return true if the element is editable
(page 460), and false otherwise.
If an element is editable (page 460) and its parent element is not, or if an element is editable
(page 460) and it has no parent element, then the element is an editing host. Editable
elements can be nested. User agents must make editing hosts focusable (which typically means
they enter the tab order (page 455)). An editing host can contain non-editable sections, these
are handled as described below. An editing host can contain non-editable sections that contain
further editing hosts.
When an editing host has focus, it must have a caret position that specifies where the current
editing position is. It may also have a selection (page 456).
Note: How the caret and selection are represented depends entirely on the
UA.
6.7.1 User editing actions
There are several actions that the user agent should allow the user to perform while the user is
interacting with an editing host. How exactly each action is triggered is not defined for every
action, but when it is not defined, suggested key bindings are provided to guide implementors.
Move the caret

User agents must allow users to move the caret to any position within an editing host, even
into nested editable elements. This could be triggered as the default action of keydown
events with various key identifiers and as the default action of mousedown events.
Change the selection

User agents must allow users to change the selection (page 456) within an editing host,
even into nested editable elements. User agents may prevent selections from being made in
ways that cross from editable elements into non-editable elements (e.g. by making each
non-editable descendant atomically selectable, but not allowing text selection within them).
This could be triggered as the default action of keydown events with various key identifiers
and as the default action of mousedown events.
Insert text
This action must be triggered as the default action of a textInput event, and may be
triggered by other commands as well. It must cause the user agent to insert the specified
461
text (given by the event object's data attribute in the case of the textInput event) at the
caret.
If the caret is positioned somewhere where phrasing content (page 90) is not allowed (e.g.
inside an empty ol element), then the user agent must not insert the text directly at the
caret position. In such cases the behavior is UA-dependent, but user agents must not, in
response to a request to insert text, generate a DOM that is less conformant than the DOM
prior to the request.
User agents should allow users to insert new paragraphs into elements that contains only
content other than paragraphs.
For example, given the markup:
<section>
<dl>
<dt> Ben </dt>
<dd> Goat </dd>
</dl>
</section>
...the user agent should allow the user to insert p elements before and after the dl
element, as children of the section element.
Break block
UAs should offer a way for the user to request that the current paragraph be broken at the
caret, e.g. as the default action of a keydown event whose identifier is the "Enter" key and
that has no modifiers set.
The exact behavior is UA-dependent, but user agents must not, in response to a request to
break a paragraph, generate a DOM that is less conformant than the DOM prior to the
request.
Insert a line separator

UAs should offer a way for the user to request an explicit line break at the caret position
without breaking the paragraph, e.g. as the default action of a keydown event whose
identifier is the "Enter" key and that has a shift modifier set. Line separators are typically
found within a poem verse or an address. To insert a line break, the user agent must insert
a br element.
If the caret is positioned somewhere where phrasing content (page 90) is not allowed (e.g.
in an empty ol element), then the user agent must not insert the br element directly at the
caret position. In such cases the behavior is UA-dependent, but user agents must not, in
response to a request to insert a line separator, generate a DOM that is less conformant
than the DOM prior to the request.
Delete
UAs should offer a way for the user to delete text and elements, including non-editable
descendants, e.g. as the default action of keydown events whose identifiers are "U+0008" or
"U+007F".
462
Five edge cases in particular need to be considered carefully when implementing this
feature: backspacing at the start of an element, backspacing when the caret is immediately
after an element, forward-deleting at the end of an element, forward-deleting when the
caret is immediately before an element, and deleting a selection (page 456) whose start
and end points do not share a common parent node.
In any case, the exact behavior is UA-dependent, but user agents must not, in response to a
request to delete text or an element, generate a DOM that is less conformant than the DOM
prior to the request.
Insert, and wrap text in, semantic elements

UAs should offer the user the ability to mark text and paragraphs with semantics that HTML
can express.
UAs should similarly offer a way for the user to insert empty semantic elements to
subsequently fill by entering text manually.
UAs should also offer a way to remove those semantics from marked up text, and to remove
empty semantic element that have been inserted.
In response to a request from a user to mark text up in italics, user agents should use the i
element to represent the semantic. The em element should be used only if the user agent is
sure that the user means to indicate stress emphasis.
In response to a request from a user to mark text up in bold, user agents should use the b
element to represent the semantic. The strong element should be used only if the user
agent is sure that the user means to indicate importance.
The exact behavior is UA-dependent, but user agents must not, in response to a request to
wrap semantics around some text or to insert or remove a semantic element, generate a
DOM that is less conformant than the DOM prior to the request.
Select and move non-editable elements nested inside editing hosts

UAs should offer a way for the user to move images and other non-editable parts around the
content within an editing host. This may be done using the drag and drop (page 464)
mechanism. User agents must not, in response to a request to move non-editable elements
nested inside editing hosts, generate a DOM that is less conformant than the DOM prior to
the request.
Edit form controls nested inside editing hosts

When an editable (page 460) form control is edited, the changes must be reflected in both
its current value and its default value. For input elements this means updating the
defaultValue DOM attribute as well as the value DOM attribute; for select elements it
means updating the option elements' defaultSelected DOM attribute as well as the
selected DOM attribute; for textarea elements this means updating the defaultValue
DOM attribute as well as the value DOM attribute. (Updating the default* DOM attributes
causes content attributes to be updated as well.)
463
User agents may perform several commands per user request; for example if the user selects a
block of text and hits Enter, the UA might interpret that as a request to delete the content of the
selection (page 456) followed by a request to break the paragraph at that position.
6.7.2 Making entire documents editable
Documents have a designMode, which can be either enabled or disabled.
The designMode DOM attribute on the Document object takes two values, "on" and "off". When
it is set, the new value must be case-insensitively compared to these two values. If it matches
the "on" value, then designMode must be enabled, and if it matches the "off" value, then
designMode must be disabled. Other values must be ignored.
When designMode is enabled, the DOM attribute must return the value "on", and when it is
disabled, it must return the value "off".
The last state set must persist until the document is destroyed or the state is changed. Initially,
documents must have their designMode disabled.
Enabling designMode causes scripts in general to be disabled (page 368) and the document to
become editable.
6.8 Drag and drop
This section defines an event-based drag-and-drop mechanism.
This specification does not define exactly what a drag-and-drop operation actually is.
On a visual medium with a pointing device, a drag operation could be the default action of a
mousedown event that is followed by a series of mousemove events, and the drop could be
triggered by the mouse being released.
On media without a pointing device, the user would probably have to explicitly indicate his
intention to perform a drag-and-drop operation, stating what he wishes to drag and what he
wishes to drop, respectively.
However it is implemented, drag-and-drop operations must have a starting point (e.g. where the
mouse was clicked, or the start of the selection (page 456) or element that was selected for the
drag), may have any number of intermediate steps (elements that the mouse moves over during
a drag, or elements that the user picks as possible drop points as he cycles through
possibilities), and must either have an end point (the element above which the mouse button
was released, or the element that was finally selected), or be canceled. The end point must be
the last element selected as a possible drop point before the drop occurs (so if the operation is
not canceled, there must be at least one element in the middle step).
464
6.8.1 Introduction
It's also currently non-existent.
6.8.2 The DragEvent and DataTransfer interfaces
The drag-and-drop processing model involves several events. They all use the DragEvent
interface.
interface DragEvent : UIEvent {

readonly attribute DataTransfer dataTransfer;
void initDragEvent(in DOMString typeArg, in boolean canBubbleArg, in
boolean cancelableArg, in AbstractView viewArg, in long detailArg, in
DataTransfer dataTransferArg);
void initDragEventNS(in DOMString namespaceURIArg, in DOMString typeArg,
in boolean canBubbleArg, in boolean cancelableArg, in AbstractView
viewArg, in long detailArg, in DataTransfer dataTransferArg);
};
We should have ▶
modifier key
information in here too
(shift/ctrl, etc), like with
The initDragEvent() and initDragEventNS() methods must initialise the event in a manner
mouse events and like analogous to the similarly-named methods in the DOM3 Events interfaces. [DOM3EVENTS]
with the context menu
event.
The dataTransfer attribute of the DragEvent interface represents the context information for
the event.
interface DataTransfer {
attribute DOMString dropEffect;
attribute DOMString effectAllowed;
readonly attribute DOMStringList types;
void clearData(in DOMString format);
void setData(in DOMString format, in DOMString data);
DOMString getData(in DOMString format);
void setDragImage(in Element image, in long x, in long y);
void addElement(in Element element);
};
DataTransfer objects can conceptually contain various kinds of data.
When a DataTransfer object is created, it must be initialized as follows:
• The DataTransfer object must initially contain no data, no elements, and have no
associated image.
• The DataTransfer object's effectAllowed attribute must be set to "uninitialized".
465
• The dropEffect attribute must be set to "none".
The dropEffect attribute controls the drag-and-drop feedback that the user is given during a
drag-and-drop operation.
The attribute must ignore any attempts to set it to a value other than none, copy, link, and
move. On getting, the attribute must return the last of those four values that it was set to.
The effectAllowed attribute is used in the drag-and-drop processing model to initialise the
dropEffect attribute during the dragenter and dragover events.
The attribute must ignore any attempts to set it to a value other than none, copy, copyLink,
copyMove, link, linkMove, move, all, and uninitialized. On getting, the attribute must return
the last of those values that it was set to.
DataTransfer objects can hold pieces of data, each associated with a unique format. Formats
are generally given by MIME types, with some values special-cased for legacy reasons.
The clearData(format) method must clear the DataTransfer object of any data associated
with the given format. If format is the value "Text", then it must be treated as "text/plain". If
the format is "URL", then it must be treated as "text/uri-list".
The setData(format, data) method must add data to the data stored in the DataTransfer
object, labeled as being of the type format. This must replace any previous data that had been
set for that format. If format is the value "Text", then it must be treated as "text/plain". If the
format is "URL", then it must be treated as "text/uri-list".
The getData(format) method must return the data that is associated with the type format, if
any, and must return the empty string otherwise. If format is the value "Text", then it must be
treated as "text/plain". If the format is "URL", then the data associated with the "text/
uri-list" format must be parsed as appropriate for text/uri-list data, and the first URL from
the list must be returned. If there is no data with that format, or if there is but it has no URLs,
then the method must return the empty string. [RFC2483]
The types attribute must return a live DOMStringList that contains the list of formats that are
stored in the DataTransfer object.
The setDragImage(element, x, y) method sets which element to use to generate the drag
feedback (page 469). The element argument can be any Element; if it is an img element, then
the user agent should use the element's image (at its intrinsic size) to generate the feedback,
otherwise the user agent should base the feedback on the given element (but the exact
mechanism for doing so is not specified).
The addElement(element) method is an alternative way of specifying how the user agent is to
render the drag feedback (page 469). It adds an element to the DataTransfer object.
6.8.3 Events fired during a drag-and-drop action
The following events are involved in the drag-and-drop model. Whenever the processing model
described below causes one of these events to be fired, the event fired must use the DragEvent
466
interface defined above, must have the bubbling and cancelable behaviors given in the table
below, and must have the context information set up as described after the table, with the view
attribute set to the view with which the user interacted to trigger the drag-and-drop event, and
the detail attribute set to zero.
Event Target Bubbles? Cancelable? dataTransfer effectAllowed dropEffect Default

Name Action
dragstart Source ✓ ✓ Cancelable Contains source uninitialized none Initiate the
node (page Bubbles node (page drag-and-drop
468) 468) unless a operation
selection is
being dragged,
in which case it
is empty
drag Source ✓ ✓ Cancelable Empty Same as last none Continue the
node (page Bubbles event (page drag-and-drop
468) 467) operation
dragenter Immediate ✓ ✓ Cancelable Empty Same as last Based on Reject
user Bubbles event (page effectAllowed immediate
selection 467) value (page user selection
(page 469) 467) (page 469) as
or the potential
body target
element element
(page 76) (page 469)
dragleave Previous ✓ — Empty Same as last none None
target Bubbles event (page
element 467)
(page 469)
dragover Current ✓ ✓ Cancelable Empty Same as last Based on Reset the
target Bubbles event (page effectAllowed current drag
element 467) value (page operation
(page 469) 467) (page 470) to
"none"
drop Current ✓ ✓ Cancelable getData() Same as last Current drag Varies
target Bubbles returns data set event (page operation
element in dragstart 467) (page 470)
(page 469) event
dragend Source ✓ — Empty Same as last Current drag Varies
node (page Bubbles event (page operation
468) 467) (page 470)
The dataTransfer object's contents are empty except for dragstart events and drop events,
for which the contents are set as described in the processing model, below.
The effectAllowed attribute must be set to "uninitialized" for dragstart events, and to
whatever value the field had after the last drag-and-drop event was fired for all other events
(only counting events fired by the user agent for the purposes of the drag-and-drop model
described below).
The dropEffect attribute must be set to "none" for dragstart, drag, and dragleave events
(except when stated otherwise in the algorithms given in the sections below), to the value
467
corresponding to the current drag operation (page 470) for drop and dragend events, and to a
value based on the effectAllowed attribute's value and to the drag-and-drop source, as given
by the following table, for the remaining events (dragenter and dragover):
effectAllowed dropEffect
none none
copy, copyLink, copyMove, all copy
link, linkMove link
move move
uninitialized when what is being dragged is a selection from a text field move
uninitialized when what is being dragged is a selection copy
uninitialized when what is being dragged is an a element with an href attribute link
Any other case copy
6.8.4 Drag-and-drop processing model
When the user attempts to begin a drag operation, the user agent must first determine what is
being dragged. If the drag operation was invoked on a selection, then it is the selection that is
being dragged. Otherwise, it is the first element, going up the ancestor chain, starting at the
node that the user tried to drag, that has the DOM attribute draggable set to true. If there is no
such element, then nothing is being dragged, the drag-and-drop operation is never started, and
the user agent must not continue with this algorithm.
Note: img elements and a elements with an href attribute have their draggable
attribute set to true by default.
If the user agent determines that something can be dragged, a dragstart event must then be
fired.
If it is a selection that is being dragged, then this event must be fired on the node that the user
started the drag on (typically the text node that the user originally clicked). If the user did not
specify a particular node, for example if the user just told the user agent to begin a drag of "the
selection", then the event must be fired on the deepest node that is a common ancestor of all
parts of the selection.
We should look into how browsers do other types (e.g. Firefox apparently also adds text/html
for internal drag and drop of a selection).
If it is not a selection that is being dragged, then the event must be fired on the element that is
being dragged.
The node on which the event is fired is the source node. Multiple events are fired on this node
during the course of the drag-and-drop operation.
If it is a selection that is being dragged, the dataTransfer member of the event must be
created with no nodes. Otherwise, it must be created containing just the source node (page
468
468). Script can use the addElement() method to add further elements to the list of what is
being dragged.
If it is a selection that is being dragged, the dataTransfer member of the event must have the
text of the selection added to it as the data associated with the text/plain format. Otherwise, if
it is an img element being dragged, then the value of the element's src DOM attribute must be
added, associated with the text/uri-list format. Otherwise, if it is an a element being
dragged, then the value of the element's href DOM attribute must be added, associated with
the text/uri-list format. Otherwise, no data is added to the object by the user agent.
If the event is canceled, then the drag-and-drop operation must not occur; the user agent must
not continue with this algorithm.
If it is not canceled, then the drag-and-drop operation must be initiated.
Note: Since events with no event handlers registered are, almost by definition,
never canceled, drag-and-drop is always available to the user if the author
does not specifically prevent it.
The drag-and-drop feedback must be generated from the first of the following sources that is
available:
1. The element specified in the last call to the setDragImage() method of the
dataTransfer object of the dragstart event, if the method was called. In visual media,
if this is used, the x and y arguments that were passed to that method should be used as
hints for where to put the cursor relative to the resulting image. The values are
expressed as distances in CSS pixels from the left side and from the top side of the
image respectively. [CSS21]
2. The elements that were added to the dataTransfer object, both before the event was
fired, and during the handling of the event using the addElement() method, if any such
elements were indeed added.
3. The selection that the user is dragging.
The user agent must take a note of the data that was placed (page 466) in the dataTransfer
object. This data will be made available again when the drop event is fired.
From this point until the end of the drag-and-drop operation, device input events (e.g. mouse
and keyboard events) must be suppressed. In addition, the user agent must track all DOM
changes made during the drag-and-drop operation, and add them to its undo history (page 475)
as one atomic operation once the drag-and-drop operation has ended.
During the drag operation, the element directly indicated by the user as the drop target is called
the immediate user selection. (Only elements can be selected by the user; other nodes must
not be made available as drop targets.) However, the immediate user selection (page 469) is not
necessarily the current target element, which is the element currently selected for the drop
part of the drag-and-drop operation. The immediate user selection (page 469) changes as the
user selects different elements (either by pointing at them with a pointing device, or by selecting
them in some other way). The current target element (page 469) changes when the immediate
469
user selection (page 469) changes, based on the results of event handlers in the document, as
described below.
Both the current target element (page 469) and the immediate user selection (page 469) can be
null, which means no target element is selected. They can also both be elements in other
(DOM-based) documents, or other (non-Web) programs altogether. (For example, a user could
drag text to a word-processor.) The current target element (page 469) is initially null.
In addition, there is also a current drag operation, which can take on the values "none",
"copy", "link", and "move". Initially it has the value "none". It is updated by the user agent as
described in the steps below.
User agents must, every 350ms (±200ms), perform the following steps in sequence. (If the user
agent is still performing the previous iteration of the sequence when the next iteration becomes
due, the user agent must not execute the overdue iteration, effectively "skipping missed
frames" of the drag-and-drop operation.)
1. First, the user agent must fire a drag event at the source node (page 468). If this event
is canceled, the user agent must set the current drag operation (page 470) to none (no
drag operation).
2. Next, if the drag event was not canceled and the user has not ended the drag-and-drop
operation, the user agent must check the state of the drag-and-drop operation, as
follows:
1. First, if the user is indicating a different immediate user selection (page 469)
than during the last iteration (or if this is the first iteration), and if this immediate
user selection (page 469) is not the same as the current target element (page
469), then the current target element (page 469) must be updated, as follows:
1. If the new immediate user selection (page 469) is null, or is in a

non-DOM document or application, then set the current target element
(page 469) to the same value.
2. Otherwise, the user agent must fire a dragenter event at the immediate
user selection (page 469).
3. If the event is canceled, then the current target element (page 469)
must be set to the immediate user selection (page 469).
4. Otherwise, if the current target element (page 469) is not the body
element (page 76), the user agent must fire a dragenter event at the
body element (page 76), and the current target element (page 469)
must be set to the body element (page 76), regardless of whether that
event was canceled or not. (If the body element (page 76) is null, then
the current target element (page 469) would be set to null too in this
case, it wouldn't be set to the Document object.)
2. If the previous step caused the current target element (page 469) to change,
and if the previous target element was not null or a part of a non-DOM
470
document, the user agent must fire a dragleave event at the previous target
element.
3. If the current target element (page 469) is a DOM element, the user agent must
fire a dragover event at this current target element (page 469).
If the dragover event is not canceled, the current drag operation (page 470)
must be reset to "none".
Otherwise, the current drag operation (page 470) must be set based on the
values the effectAllowed and dropEffect attributes of the dataTransfer
object had after the event was handled, as per the following table:
effectAllowed dropEffect Drag operation

uninitialized, copy, copyLink, copyMove, or all copy "copy"
uninitialized, link, copyLink, linkMove, or all link "link"
uninitialized, move, copyMove, linkMove, or all move "move"
Any other case "none"
Then, regardless of whether the dragover event was canceled or not, the drag
feedback (e.g. the mouse cursor) must be updated to match the current drag
operation (page 470), as follows:
Drag operation Feedback

"copy" Data will be copied if dropped here.
"link" Data will be linked if dropped here.
"move" Data will be moved if dropped here.
"none" No operation allowed, dropping here will cancel the drag-and-drop operation.
4. Otherwise, if the current target element (page 469) is not a DOM element, the
user agent must use platform-specific mechanisms to determine what drag
operation is being performed (none, copy, link, or move). This sets the current
drag operation (page 470).
3. Otherwise, if the user ended the drag-and-drop operation (e.g. by releasing the mouse
button in a mouse-driven drag-and-drop interface), or if the drag event was canceled,
then this will be the last iteration. The user agent must execute the following steps, then
stop looping.
1. If the current drag operation (page 470) is none (no drag operation), or, if the
user ended the drag-and-drop operation by canceling it (e.g. by hitting the
Escape key), or if the current target element (page 469) is null, then the drag
operation failed. If the current target element (page 469) is a DOM element, the
user agent must fire a dragleave event at it; otherwise, if it is not null, it must
use platform-specific conventions for drag cancellation.
2. Otherwise, the drag operation was as success. If the current target element
(page 469) is a DOM element, the user agent must fire a drop event at it;
otherwise, it must use platform-specific conventions for indicating a drop.
471
When the target is a DOM element, the dropEffect attribute of the event's
dataTransfer object must be given the value representing the current drag
operation (page 470) (copy, link, or move), and the object must be set up so
that the getData() method will return the data that was added during the
dragstart event.
If the event is canceled, the current drag operation (page 470) must be set to
the value of the dropEffect attribute of the event's dataTransfer object as it
stood after the event was handled.
Otherwise, the event is not canceled, and the user agent must perform the
event's default action, which depends on the exact target as follows:
↪ If the current target element (page 469) is a text field (e.g.

textarea, or an input element with type="text")
The user agent must insert the data associated with the text/plain
format, if any, into the text field in a manner consistent with
platform-specific conventions (e.g. inserting it at the current mouse
cursor position, or inserting it at the end of the field).
↪ Otherwise
Reset the current drag operation (page 470) to "none".
3. Finally, the user agent must fire a dragend event at the source node (page 468),
with the dropEffect attribute of the event's dataTransfer object being set to
the value corresponding to the current drag operation (page 470).
Note: The current drag operation (page 470) can change during
the processing of the drop event, if one was fired.
The event is not cancelable. After the event has been handled, the user agent
must act as follows:

textarea, or an input element with type="text"), and a drop event
was fired in the previous step, and the current drag operation (page
470) is "move", and the source of the drag-and-drop operation is a
selection in the DOM
The user agent should delete the range representing the dragged
selection from the DOM.

textarea, or an input element with type="text"), and a drop event
was fired in the previous step, and the current drag operation (page
470) is "move", and the source of the drag-and-drop operation is a
selection in a text field
The user agent should delete the dragged selection from the relevant
text field.
472
↪ Otherwise
The event has no default action.
6.8.4.1. When the drag-and-drop operation starts or ends in another document
The model described above is independent of which Document object the nodes involved are
from; the events must be fired as described above and the rest of the processing model must be
followed as described above, irrespective of how many documents are involved in the operation.
6.8.4.2. When the drag-and-drop operation starts or ends in another application
If the drag is initiated in another application, the source node (page 468) is not a DOM node, and
the user agent must use platform-specific conventions instead when the requirements above
involve the source node. User agents in this situation must act as if the dragged data had been
added to the DataTransfer object when the drag started, even though no dragstart event was
actually fired; user agents must similarly use platform-specific conventions when deciding on
what drag feedback to use.
If a drag is started in a document but ends in another application, then the user agent must
instead replace the parts of the processing model relating to handling the target according to
platform-specific conventions.
In any case, scripts running in the context of the document must not be able to distinguish the
case of a drag-and-drop operation being started or ended in another application from the case of
a drag-and-drop operation being started or ended in another document from another domain.
6.8.5 The draggable attribute
All elements may have the draggable content attribute set. The draggable attribute is an
enumerated attribute (page 54). It has three states. The first state is true and it has the keyword
true. The second state is false and it has the keyword false. The third state is auto; it has no
keywords but it is the missing value default.
The draggable DOM attribute, whose value depends on the content attribute's in the way
described below, controls whether or not the element is draggable. Generally, only text
selections are draggable, but elements whose draggable DOM attribute is true become
draggable as well.
If an element's draggable content attribute has the state true, the draggable DOM attribute
must return true.
Otherwise, if the element's draggable content attribute has the state false, the draggable DOM
attribute must return false.
Otherwise, the element's draggable content attribute has the state auto. If the element is an
img element, or, if the element is an a element with an href content attribute, the draggable
DOM attribute must return true.
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Otherwise, the draggable DOM must return false.
If the draggable DOM attribute is set to the value false, the draggable content attribute must
be set to the literal value false. If the draggable DOM attribute is set to the value true, the
draggable content attribute must be set to the literal value true.
6.8.6 Copy and paste
Copy-and-paste is a form of drag-and-drop: the "copy" part is equivalent to dragging content to

another application (the "clipboard"), and the "paste" part is equivalent to dragging content
from another application.
Select-and-paste (a model used by mouse operations in the X Window System) is equivalent to a

drag-and-drop operation where the source is the selection.
6.8.6.1. Copy to clipboard
When the user invokes a copy operation, the user agent must act as if the user had invoked a
drag on the current selection. If the drag-and-drop operation initiates, then the user agent must
act as if the user had indicated (as the immediate user selection (page 469)) a hypothetical
application representing the clipboard. Then, the user agent must act as if the user had ended
the drag-and-drop operation without canceling it. If the drag-and-drop operation didn't get
canceled, the user agent should then follow the relevant platform-specific conventions for copy
operations (e.g. updating the clipboard).
6.8.6.2. Cut to clipboard
When the user invokes a cut operation, the user agent must act as if the user had invoked a
copy operation (see the previous section), followed, if the copy was completed successfully, by a
selection delete operation (page 462).
6.8.6.3. Paste from clipboard
When the user invokes a clipboard paste operation, the user agent must act as if the user had
invoked a drag on a hypothetical application representing the clipboard, setting the data
associated with the drag as the content on the clipboard (in whatever formats are available).
Then, the user agent must act as if the user had indicated (as the immediate user selection
(page 469)) the element with the keyboard focus, and then ended the drag-and-drop operation
without canceling it.
6.8.6.4. Paste from selection
When the user invokes a selection paste operation, the user agent must act as if the user had
invoked a drag on the current selection, then indicated (as the immediate user selection (page
474
469)) the element with the keyboard focus, and then ended the drag-and-drop operation without
canceling it.
6.8.7 Security risks in the drag-and-drop model
User agents must not make the data added to the DataTransfer object during the dragstart
event available to scripts until the drop event, because otherwise, if a user were to drag
sensitive information from one document to a second document, crossing a hostile third
document in the process, the hostile document could intercept the data.
For the same reason, user agents must consider a drop to be successful only if the user
specifically ended the drag operation — if any scripts end the drag operation, it must be
considered unsuccessful (canceled) and the drop event must not be fired.
User agents should take care to not start drag-and-drop operations in response to script actions.
For example, in a mouse-and-window environment, if a script moves a window while the user
has his mouse button depressed, the UA would not consider that to start a drag. This is
important because otherwise UAs could cause data to be dragged from sensitive sources and
dropped into hostile documents without the user's consent.
6.9 Undo history
There has got to be a better way of doing this, surely.
The user agent must associate an undo transaction history with each HTMLDocument object.
The undo transaction history (page 475) is a list of entries. The entries are of two type: DOM
changes (page 475) and undo objects (page 475).
Each DOM changes entry in the undo transaction history (page 475) consists of batches of one
or more of the following:
• Changes to the content attributes (page 26) of an Element node.
• Changes to the DOM attributes (page 27) of a Node.
• Changes to the DOM hierarchy of nodes that are descendants of the HTMLDocument
object (parentNode, childNodes).
Undo object entries consist of objects representing state that scripts running in the document
are managing. For example, a Web mail application could use an undo object (page 475) to keep
track of the fact that a user has moved an e-mail to a particular folder, so that the user can undo
the action and have the e-mail return to its former location.
Broadly speaking, DOM changes (page 475) entries are handled by the UA in response to user
edits of form controls and editing hosts on the page, and undo object (page 475) entries are
475
handled by script in response to higher-level user actions (such as interactions with server-side
state, or in the implementation of a drawing tool).
6.9.1 The UndoManager interface
This API sucks. Seriously. It's a terrible API. Really bad. I hate it. Here are the requirements:
• Has to cope with cases where the server has undo state already when the page is
loaded, that can be stuffed into the undo buffer onload.
• Has to support undo/redo.
• Has to cope with the "undo" action being "contact the server and tell it to undo",
rather than it being the opposite of the "redo" action.
• Has to cope with some undo states expiring from the undo history (e.g. server can
only remember one undelete action) but other states not expiring (e.g. client can
undo arbitrary amounts of local edits).
To manage undo object (page 475) entries in the undo transaction history (page 475), the
UndoManager interface can be used:
interface UndoManager {
unsigned long add(in DOMObject data, in DOMString title);
[XXX] void remove(in unsigned long index);
void clearUndo();
void clearRedo();
[IndexGetter] DOMObject item(in unsigned long index);
readonly attribute unsigned long position;
};
The undoManager attribute of the Window interface must return the object implementing the
UndoManager interface for that Window object's associated HTMLDocument object.
UndoManager objects represent their document's undo transaction history (page 475). Only undo
object (page 475) entries are visible with this API, but this does not mean that DOM changes
(page 475) entries are absent from the undo transaction history (page 475).
The length attribute must return the number of undo object (page 475) entries in the undo
transaction history (page 475).
The item(n) method must return the nth undo object (page 475) entry in the undo transaction
history (page 475).
The undo transaction history (page 475) has a current position. This is the position between
two entries in the undo transaction history (page 475)'s list where the previous entry represents
476
what needs to happen if the user invokes the "undo" command (the "undo" side, lower
numbers), and the next entry represents what needs to happen if the user invokes the "redo"
command (the "redo" side, higher numbers).
The position attribute must return the index of the undo object (page 475) entry nearest to the
undo position (page 476), on the "redo" side. If there are no undo object (page 475) entries on
the "redo" side, then the attribute must return the same as the length attribute. If there are no
undo object (page 475) entries on the "undo" side of the undo position (page 476), the position
attribute returns zero.
Note: Since the undo transaction history (page 475) contains both undo object
(page 475) entries and DOM changes (page 475) entries, but the position
attribute only returns indices relative to undo object (page 475) entries, it is
possible for several "undo" or "redo" actions to be performed without the
value of the position attribute changing.
The add(data, title) method's behavior depends on the current state. Normally, it must
insert the data object passed as an argument into the undo transaction history (page 475)
immediately before the undo position (page 476), optionally remembering the given title to use
in the UI. If the method is called during an undo operation (page 478), however, the object must
instead be added immediately after the undo position (page 476).
If the method is called and there is neither an undo operation in progress (page 478) nor a redo
operation in progress (page 478) then any entries in the undo transaction history (page 475)
after the undo position (page 476) must be removed (as if clearRedo() had been called).
We could fire events when someone adds something to the undo history -- one event per
undo object entry before the position (or after, during redo addition), allowing the script to
decide if that entry should remain or not. Or something. Would make it potentially easier to
expire server-held state when the server limitations come into play.
The remove(index) method must remove the undo object (page 475) entry with the specified
index. If the index is less than zero or greater than or equal to length then the method must
raise an INDEX_SIZE_ERR exception. DOM changes (page 475) entries are unaffected by this
method.
The clearUndo() method must remove all entries in the undo transaction history (page 475)
before the undo position (page 476), be they DOM changes (page 475) entries or undo object
(page 475) entries.
The clearRedo() method must remove all entries in the undo transaction history (page 475)
after the undo position (page 476), be they DOM changes (page 475) entries or undo object
(page 475) entries.
Another idea is to have a way for scripts to say "startBatchingDOMChangesForUndo()" and

after that the changes to the DOM go in as if the user had done them.
477
6.9.2 Undo: moving back in the undo transaction history
When the user invokes an undo operation, or when the execCommand() method is called with the
undo command, the user agent must perform an undo operation.
If the undo position (page 476) is at the start of the undo transaction history (page 475), then
the user agent must do nothing.
If the entry immediately before the undo position (page 476) is a DOM changes (page 475)
entry, then the user agent must remove that DOM changes (page 475) entry, reverse the DOM
changes that were listed in that entry, and, if the changes were reversed with no problems, add
a new DOM changes (page 475) entry (consisting of the opposite of those DOM changes) to the
undo transaction history (page 475) on the other side of the undo position (page 476).
If the DOM changes cannot be undone (e.g. because the DOM state is no longer consistent with
the changes represented in the entry), then the user agent must simply remove the DOM
changes (page 475) entry, without doing anything else.
If the entry immediately before the undo position (page 476) is an undo object (page 475) entry,
then the user agent must first remove that undo object (page 475) entry from the undo
transaction history (page 475), and then must fire an undo event on the Document object, using
the undo object (page 475) entry's associated undo object as the event's data.
Any calls to add() while the event is being handled will be used to populate the redo history,
and will then be used if the user invokes the "redo" command to undo his undo.
6.9.3 Redo: moving forward in the undo transaction history
When the user invokes a redo operation, or when the execCommand() method is called with the
redo command, the user agent must perform a redo operation.
This is mostly the opposite of an undo operation (page 478), but the full definition is included
here for completeness.
If the undo position (page 476) is at the end of the undo transaction history (page 475), then the
user agent must do nothing.
If the entry immediately after the undo position (page 476) is a DOM changes (page 475) entry,
then the user agent must remove that DOM changes (page 475) entry, reverse the DOM
changes that were listed in that entry, and, if the changes were reversed with no problems, add
a new DOM changes (page 475) entry (consisting of the opposite of those DOM changes) to the
undo transaction history (page 475) on the other side of the undo position (page 476).
If the DOM changes cannot be redone (e.g. because the DOM state is no longer consistent with
the changes represented in the entry), then the user agent must simply remove the DOM
changes (page 475) entry, without doing anything else.
If the entry immediately after the undo position (page 476) is an undo object (page 475) entry,
then the user agent must first remove that undo object (page 475) entry from the undo
478
transaction history (page 475), and then must fire a redo event on the Document object, using
the undo object (page 475) entry's associated undo object as the event's data.
6.9.4 The UndoManagerEvent interface and the undo and redo events
interface UndoManagerEvent : Event {

readonly attribute DOMObject data;
void initUndoManagerEvent(in DOMString typeArg, in boolean canBubbleArg,
in boolean cancelableArg, in DOMObject dataArg);
void initUndoManagerEventNS(in DOMString namespaceURIArg, in DOMString
typeArg, in boolean canBubbleArg, in boolean cancelableArg, in DOMObject
dataArg);
};
The initUndoManagerEvent() and initUndoManagerEventNS() methods must initialise the

event in a manner analogous to the similarly-named methods in the DOM3 Events interfaces.
[DOM3EVENTS]
The data attribute represents the undo object (page 475) for the event.
The undo and redo events do not bubble, cannot be canceled, and have no default action. When
the user agent fires one of these events it must use the UndoManagerEvent interface, with the
data field containing the relevant undo object (page 475).
6.9.5 Implementation notes
How user agents present the above conceptual model to the user is not defined. The undo
interface could be a filtered view of the undo transaction history (page 475), it could manipulate
the undo transaction history (page 475) in ways not described above, and so forth. For example,
it is possible to design a UA that appears to have separate undo transaction histories (page 475)
for each form control; similarly, it is possible to design systems where the user has access to
more undo information than is present in the official (as described above) undo transaction
history (page 475) (such as providing a tree-based approach to document state). Such UI models
should be based upon the single undo transaction history (page 475) described in this section,
however, such that to a script there is no detectable difference.
6.10 Command APIs
The execCommand(commandId, showUI, value) method on the HTMLDocument interface allows

scripts to perform actions on the current selection (page 456) or at the current caret position.
Generally, these commands would be used to implement editor UI, for example having a
"delete" button on a toolbar.
There are three variants to this method, with one, two, and three arguments respectively. The
showUI and value parameters, even if specified, are ignored unless otherwise stated.
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When execCommand() is invoked, the user agent must follow the following steps:
1. If the given commandId maps to an entry in the list below whose "Enabled When" entry
has a condition that is currently false, do nothing; abort these steps.
2. Otherwise, execute the "Action" listed below for the given commandId.
A document is ready for editing host commands if it has a selection that is entirely within an
editing host (page 461), or if it has no selection but its caret is inside an editing host (page 461).
The queryCommandEnabled(commandId) method, when invoked, must return true if the condition
listed below under "Enabled When" for the given commandId is true, and false otherwise.
The queryCommandIndeterm(commandId) method, when invoked, must return true if the

condition listed below under "Indeterminate When" for the given commandId is true, and false
otherwise.
The queryCommandState(commandId) method, when invoked, must return the value expressed
below under "State" for the given commandId.
The queryCommandSupported(commandId) method, when invoked, must return true if the given
commandId is in the list below, and false otherwise.
The queryCommandValue(commandId) method, when invoked, must return the value expressed
below under "Value" for the given commandId.
The possible values for commandId, and their corresponding meanings, are as follows. These
values are case-insensitive.
bold
Action: The user agent must act as if the user had requested that the selection be wrapped
in the semantics (page 463) of the b element (or, again, unwrapped, or have that semantic
inserted or removed, as defined by the UA).
Enabled When: The document is ready for editing host commands (page 480).
Indeterminate When: Never.
State: True if the selection, or the caret, if there is no selection, is, or is
contained within, a b element. False otherwise.
Value: The string "true" if the expression given for the "State" above is
true, the string "false" otherwise.
createLink
in the semantics (page 463) of the a element (or, again, unwrapped, or have that semantic
inserted or removed, as defined by the UA). If the user agent creates an a element or
modifies an existing a element, then if the showUI argument is present and has the value
false, then the value of the value argument must be used as the URL (page 29) of the link.
Otherwise, the user should be prompted for the URL of the link.
State: Always false.
Value: Always the string "false".
480
delete
Action: The user agent must act as if the user had performed a backspace operation (page
462).
formatBlock
Action: The user agent must run the following steps:
1. If the value argument wasn't specified, abort these steps without doing anything.
2. If the value argument has a leading U+003C LESS-THAN SIGN character ('<') and a
trailing U+003E GREATER-THAN SIGN character ('>'), then remove the first and last
characters from value.
3. If value is (now) a case-insensitive match for the tag name of an element defined by
this specification that is defined to be a prose element but not a phrasing element,
then, for every position in the selection, take the furthest flow content (page 89)
ancestor element of that position that contains only phrasing content (page 90),
and, if that element is editable (page 460), and has a content model that allows it to
contain prose content other than phrasing content (page 90), and has a parent
element whose content model allows that parent to contain any prose content,
rename the element (as if the Element.renameNode() method had been used) to
value, using the HTML namespace.
If there is no selection, then, where in the description above refers to the selection,
the user agent must act as if the selection was an empty range (with just one
position) at the caret position.
forwardDelete
Action: The user agent must act as if the user had performed a forward delete operation
(page 462).
insertImage
in the semantics (page 463) of the img element (or, again, unwrapped, or have that
semantic inserted or removed, as defined by the UA). If the user agent creates an img
element or modifies an existing img element, then if the showUI argument is present and
481
has the value false, then the value of the value argument must be used as the URL (page
29) of the image. Otherwise, the user should be prompted for the URL of the image.
insertHTML
Action: The user agent must run the following steps:
1. If the value argument wasn't specified, abort these steps without doing anything.
2. If there is a selection, act as if the user had requested that the selection be deleted
(page 462).
3. Invoke the HTML fragment parsing algorithm (page 596) with an arbitrary orphan
body element as the context (page 242) element and with the value argument as
input.
4. Insert the nodes returned by the previous step into the document at the location of
the caret.
insertLineBreak
Action: The user agent must act as if the user had requested a line separator (page 462).
insertOrderedList
in the semantics (page 463) of the ol element (or unwrapped, or, if there is no selection,
have that semantic inserted or removed — the exact behavior is UA-defined).
insertOrderedList
in the semantics (page 463) of the ul element (or unwrapped, or, if there is no selection,
482
insertParagraph
Action: The user agent must act as if the user had performed a break block (page 462)
editing action.
insertText
Action: The user agent must act as if the user had inserted text (page 461) corresponding
to the value parameter.
italic
in the semantics (page 463) of the i element (or, again, unwrapped, or have that semantic
inserted or removed, as defined by the UA).
contained within, a i element. False otherwise.
redo
Action: The user agent must move forward one step (page 478) in its undo transaction
history (page 475), restoring the associated state. If the undo position (page 476) is at the
end of the undo transaction history (page 475), the user agent must do nothing. See the
undo history (page 475).
Enabled When: The undo position (page 476) is not at the end of the undo transaction
history (page 475).
selectAll
Action: The user agent must change the selection so that all the content in the currently
focused editing host (page 461) is selected. If no editing host (page 461) is focused, then
the content of the entire document must be selected.
Enabled When: Always.
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subscript
in the semantics (page 463) of the sub element (or, again, unwrapped, or have that
semantic inserted or removed, as defined by the UA).
contained within, a sub element. False otherwise.
superscript
in the semantics (page 463) of the sup element (or unwrapped, or, if there is no selection,
contained within, a sup element. False otherwise.
undo
Action: The user agent must move back one step (page 478) in its undo transaction history
(page 475), restoring the associated state. If the undo position (page 476) is at the start of
the undo transaction history (page 475), the user agent must do nothing. See the undo
history (page 475).
Enabled When: The undo position (page 476) is not at the start of the undo
transaction history (page 475).
unlink
Action: The user agent must remove all a elements that have href attributes and that are
partially or completely included in the current selection.
Enabled When: The document has a selection that is entirely within an editing host
(page 461).
unselect
Action: The user agent must change the selection so that nothing is selected.
Enabled When: Always.
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vendorID-customCommandID
Action: User agents may implement vendor-specific extensions to this API. Vendor-specific
extensions to the list of commands should use the syntax vendorID-customCommandID so as
to prevent clashes between extensions from different vendors and future additions to this
specification.
Enabled When: UA-defined.
Indeterminate When: UA-defined.
State: UA-defined.
Value: UA-defined.
Anything else
Action: User agents must do nothing.
Enabled When: Never.
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7. Communication
7.1 Event definitions
Messages in cross-document messaging (page 505) and in server-sent DOM events (page 486),
use the message event.
The following interface is defined for this event:
interface MessageEvent : Event {

readonly attribute DOMString data;
readonly attribute DOMString origin;
readonly attribute DOMString lastEventId;
readonly attribute Window source;
void initMessageEvent(in DOMString typeArg, in boolean canBubbleArg, in
boolean cancelableArg, in DOMString dataArg, in DOMString originArg, in
DOMString lastEventIdArg, in Window sourceArg);
void initMessageEventNS(in DOMString namespaceURI, in DOMString typeArg,
in boolean canBubbleArg, in boolean cancelableArg, in DOMString dataArg,
in DOMString originArg, in DOMString lastEventIdArg, in Window sourceArg);
};
The initMessageEvent() and initMessageEventNS() methods must initialise the event in a

[DOM3EVENTS]
The data attribute represents the message being sent.
The origin attribute represents, in cross-document messaging (page 505), the origin (page
363) of the document that sent the message (typically the scheme, hostname, and port of the
document, but not its path or fragment identifier).
The lastEventId attribute represents, in server-sent dom events (page 486), the last event ID
string of the event source.
The source attribute represents, in cross-document messaging (page 505), the Window from
which the message came.
7.2 Server-sent DOM events
This section describes a mechanism for allowing servers to dispatch DOM events into documents
that expect it. The event-source element provides a simple interface to this mechanism.
486
7.2.1 The RemoteEventTarget interface
Any object that implements the EventTarget interface must also implement the
RemoteEventTarget interface.
interface RemoteEventTarget {
void addEventSource(in DOMString src);
void removeEventSource(in DOMString src);
};
When the addEventSource(src) method is invoked, the user agent must resolve (page 31) the
URL (page 29) specified in src, and if that succeeds, add the resulting absolute URL (page 33) to
the list of event sources (page 487) for that object. The same URL can be registered multiple
times. If the URL fails to resolve, then the user agent must raise a SYNTAX_ERR exception.
When the removeEventSource(src) method is invoked, the user agent must resolve (page 31)
the URL (page 29) specified in src, and if that succeeds, remove the resulting absolute URL
(page 33) from the list of event sources (page 487) for that object. If the same URI has been
registered multiple times, removing it must remove only one instance of that URI for each
invocation of the removeEventSource() method. If the URL fails to resolve, the user agent does
nothing.
7.2.2 Connecting to an event stream
Each object implementing the EventTarget and RemoteEventTarget interfaces has a list of
event sources that are registered for that object.
When a new URI is added to this list, the user agent should, as soon as all currently executing
scripts (if any) have finished executing, and if the specified URL isn't removed from the list
before they do so, fetch the resource identified by that URL.
When an event source is removed from the list of event sources for an object, if that resource is
still being fetched, then the relevant connection must be closed.
Since connections established to remote servers for such resources are expected to be
long-lived, UAs should ensure that appropriate buffering is used. In particular, while line
buffering may be safe if lines are defined to end with a single U+000A LINE FEED character,
block buffering or line buffering with different expected line endings can cause delays in event
dispatch.
Each event source in the list must have associated with it the following:
• The reconnection time, in milliseconds. This must initially be a user-agent-defined

value, probably in the region of a few seconds.
• The last event ID string. This must initially be the empty string.
In general, the semantics of the transport protocol specified by the URLs for the event sources
must be followed, including HTTP caching rules.
487
For HTTP connections, the Accept header may be included; if included, it must contain only
formats of event framing that are supported by the user agent (one of which must be text/
event-stream, as described below).
Other formats of event framing may also be supported in addition to text/event-stream, but
this specification does not define how they are to be parsed or processed.
Note: Such formats could include systems like SMS-push; for example servers
could use Accept headers and HTTP redirects to an SMS-push mechanism as a
kind of protocol negotiation to reduce network load in GSM environments.
User agents should use the Cache-Control: no-cache header in requests to bypass any caches
for requests of event sources.
If the event source's last event ID string is not the empty string, then a Last-Event-ID HTTP
header must be included with the request, whose value is the value of the event source's last
event ID string.
For connections to domains other than the document's domain (page 367), the semantics of the
Access-Control HTTP header must be followed. [ACCESSCONTROL]
HTTP 200 OK responses with a Content-Type (page 63) header specifying the type text/
event-stream that are either from the document's domain (page 367) or explicitly allowed by
the Access-Control HTTP headers must be processed line by line as described below (page 490).
For the purposes of such successfully opened event streams only, user agents should ignore
HTTP cache headers, and instead assume that the resource indicates that it does not wish to be
cached.
If such a resource completes loading (i.e. the entire HTTP response body is received or the
connection itself closes), the user agent should request the event source resource again after a
delay equal to the reconnection time of the event source.
HTTP 200 OK responses that have a Content-Type (page 63) other than text/event-stream (or
some other supported type), and HTTP responses whose Access-Control headers indicate that
the resource are not to be used, must be ignored and must prevent the user agent from
refetching the resource for that event source.
HTTP 201 Created, 202 Accepted, 203 Non-Authoritative Information, and 206 Partial Content
responses must be treated like HTTP 200 OK responses for the purposes of reopening event
source resources. They are, however, likely to indicate an error has occurred somewhere and
may cause the user agent to emit a warning.
HTTP 204 No Content, and 205 Reset Content responses must be treated as if they were 200 OK
responses with the right MIME type but no content, and should therefore cause the user agent to
refetch the resource after a delay equal to the reconnection time of the event source.
HTTP 300 Multiple Choices responses should be handled automatically if possible (treating the
responses as if they were 302 Found responses pointing to the appropriate resource), and
otherwise must be treated as HTTP 404 responses.
488
HTTP 301 Moved Permanently responses must cause the user agent to reconnect using the new
server specified URL instead of the previously specified URL for all subsequent requests for this
event source. (It doesn't affect other event sources with the same URL unless they also receive
301 responses, and it doesn't affect future sessions, e.g. if the page is reloaded.)
HTTP 302 Found, 303 See Other, and 307 Temporary Redirect responses must cause the user
agent to connect to the new server-specified URL, but if the user agent needs to again request
the resource at a later point, it must return to the previously specified URL for this event source.
HTTP 304 Not Modified responses should be handled like HTTP 200 OK responses, with the
content coming from the user agent cache. A new request should then be made after a delay
equal to the reconnection time of the event source.
HTTP 305 Use Proxy, HTTP 401 Unauthorized, and 407 Proxy Authentication Required should be
treated transparently as for any other subresource.
Any other HTTP response code not listed here should cause the user agent to stop trying to
process this event source.
DNS errors must be considered fatal, and cause the user agent to not open any connection for
that event source.
For non-HTTP protocols, UAs should act in equivalent ways.
7.2.3 Parsing an event stream
This event stream format's MIME type is text/event-stream.
The event stream format is (in pseudo-BNF):
<stream> ::= <bom>? <event>*

<event> ::= [ <comment> | <field> ]* <newline>
<comment> ::= <colon> <any-char>* <newline>
<field> ::= <name-char>+ [ <colon> <space>? <any-char>* ]?
<newline>
# characters:
<bom> ::= a single U+FEFF BYTE ORDER MARK character
<space> ::= a single U+0020 SPACE character (' ')
<newline> ::= a U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN character
followed by a U+000A LINE FEED character
| a single U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN character
| a single U+000A LINE FEED character
| the end of the file
<colon> ::= a single U+003A COLON character (':')
<name-char> ::= a single Unicode character other than
U+003A COLON, U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN and U+000A LINE
FEED
<any-char> ::= a single Unicode character other than
U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN and U+000A LINE FEED
489
Event streams in this format must always be encoded as UTF-8.
Lines must be separated by either a U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN U+000A LINE FEED (CRLF)
character pair, a single U+000A LINE FEED (LF) character, or a single U+000D CARRIAGE
RETURN (CR) character.
7.2.4 Interpreting an event stream
Bytes or sequences of bytes that are not valid UTF-8 sequences must be interpreted as the
U+FFFD REPLACEMENT CHARACTER.
One leading U+FEFF BYTE ORDER MARK character must be ignored if any are present.
The stream must then be parsed by reading everything line by line, with a U+000D CARRIAGE
RETURN U+000A LINE FEED (CRLF) character pair, a single U+000A LINE FEED (LF) character, a
single U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN (CR) character, and the end of the file being the four ways in
which a line can end.
When a stream is parsed, a data buffer and an event name buffer must be associated with it.
They must be initialized to the empty string
Lines must be processed, in the order they are received, as follows:
↪ If the line is empty (a blank line)

Dispatch the event (page 491), as defined below.
↪ If the line starts with a U+003A COLON character (':')

Ignore the line.
↪ If the line contains a U+003A COLON character (':') character

Collect the characters on the line before the first U+003A COLON character (':'), and let
field be that string.
Collect the characters on the line after the first U+003A COLON character (':'), and let
value be that string. If value starts with a single U+0020 SPACE character, remove it
from value.
Process the field (page 491) using the steps described below, using field as the field
name and value as the field value.
↪ Otherwise, the string is not empty but does not contain a U+003A COLON
character (':') character
Process the field (page 491) using the steps described below, using the whole line as
the field name, and the empty string as the field value.
Once the end of the file is reached, the user agent must dispatch the event (page 491) one final
time, as defined below.
490
The steps to process the field given a field name and a field value depend on the field name,
as given in the following list. Field names must be compared literally, with no case folding
performed.
↪ If the field name is "event"

Set the event name buffer the to field value.
↪ If the field name is "data"

If the data buffer is not the empty string, then append a single U+000A LINE FEED
character to the data buffer. Append the field value to the data buffer.
↪ If the field name is "id"

Set the event stream's last event ID (page 487) to the field value.
↪ If the field name is "retry"

If the field value consists of only characters in the range U+0030 DIGIT ZERO ('0')
U+0039 DIGIT NINE ('9'), then interpret the field value as an integer in base ten, and set
the event stream's reconnection time (page 487) to that integer. Otherwise, ignore the
field.
↪ Otherwise
The field is ignored.
When the user agent is required to dispatch the event, then the user agent must act as
follows:
1. If the data buffer is an empty string, set the data buffer and the event name buffer to
the empty string and abort these steps.
2. If the event name buffer is not the empty string but is also not a valid NCName, set the
data buffer and the event name buffer to the empty string and abort these steps.
3. Otherwise, create an event that uses the MessageEvent interface, with the event name
message, which does not bubble, is cancelable, and has no default action. The data
attribute must be set to the value of the data buffer, the origin attribute must be set to
the origin (page 363) of the event stream's URL, the lastEventId attribute must be set
to the last event ID string of the event source, and the source attribute must be set to
null.
4. If the event name buffer has a value other than the empty string, change the type of the
newly created event to equal the value of the event name buffer.
5. Set the data buffer and the event name buffer to the empty string.
6. Dispatch the newly created event at the RemoteEventTarget object to which the event
stream is registered.
491
Note: If an event doesn't have an "id" field, but an earlier event did set the
event source's last event ID string, then the event's lastEventId field will be
set to the value of whatever the last seen "id" field was.
The following event stream, once followed by a blank line:
data: YHOO
data: -2
data: 10
...would cause an event message with the interface MessageEvent to be dispatched on the
event-source element, whose data attribute would contain the string YHOO\n-2\n10
(where \n represents a newline).
This could be used as follows:
<event-source src="http://stocks.example.com/ticker.php"
onmessage="var data = event.data.split('\n');
updateStocks(data[0], data[1], data[2]);">
...where updateStocks() is a function defined as:
function updateStocks(symbol, delta, value) { ... }
...or some such.
The following stream contains four blocks. The first block has just a comment, and will fire
nothing. The second block has two fields with names "data" and "id" respectively; an event
will be fired for this block, with the data "first event", and will then set the last event ID to
"1" so that if the connection died between this block and the next, the server would be sent
a Last-Event-ID header with the value "1". The third block fires an event with data "second
event", and also has an "id" field, this time with no value, which resets the last event ID to
the empty string (meaning no Last-Event-ID header will now be sent in the event of a
reconnection being attempted). Finally the last block just fires an event with the data "third
event". Note that the last block doesn't have to end with a blank line, the end of the stream
is enough to trigger the dispatch of the last event.
: test stream
data: first event

id: 1
data: second event

id
data: third event
The following stream fires just one event:
data
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data
data
data:
The first and last blocks do nothing, since they do not contain any actual data (the data
buffer remains at the empty string, and so nothing gets dispatched). The middle block fires
an event with the data set to a single newline character.
The following stream fires two identical events:
data:test
data: test
This is because the space after the colon is ignored if present.
7.2.5 Notes
Legacy proxy servers are known to, in certain cases, drop HTTP connections after a short
timeout. To protect against such proxy servers, authors can include a comment line (one
starting with a ':' character) every 15 seconds or so.
Authors wishing to relate event source connections to each other or to specific documents
previously served might find that relying on IP addresses doesn't work, as individual clients can
have multiple IP addresses (due to having multiple proxy servers) and individual IP addresses
can have multiple clients (due to sharing a proxy server). It is better to include a unique
identifier in the document when it is served and then pass that identifier as part of the URL in
the src attribute of the event-source element.
Implementations that support HTTP's per-server connection limitation might run into trouble
when opening multiple pages from a site if each page has an event-source to the same
domain. Authors can avoid this using the relatively complex mechanism of using unique domain
names per connection, or by allowing the user to enable or disable the event-source
functionality on a per-page basis.
7.3 Web sockets
To enable Web applications to maintain bidirectional communications with their originating

server, this specification introduces the WebSocket interface.
Note: This interface does not allow for raw access to the underlying network.
For example, this interface could not be used to implement an IRC client
without proxying messages through a custom server.
493
7.3.1 Introduction
An introduction to the client-side and server-side of using the direct connection APIs.
7.3.2 The WebSocket interface
interface WebSocket {
// constructor
[Constructor] WebSocket(in DOMString url);
readonly attribute DOMString URL;
// ready state
const unsigned short CONNECTING = 0;
const unsigned short OPEN = 1;
const unsigned short CLOSED = 2;
readonly attribute int readyState;
// networking
attribute EventListener onopen;
attribute EventListener onread;
attribute EventListener onclosed;
void send(in DOMString data);
void disconnect();
};
WebSocket objects must also implement the EventTarget interface. [DOM3EVENTS]
The WebSocket constructor takes one argument, url, which specifies the URL (page 29) to which
to connect. When a WebSocket object is created, the UA must parse (page 29) this argument and
verify that the URL parses without failure and has a <scheme> (page 30) component whose
value is either "ws" or "wss", when compared case-insensitively. If it does, it has, and it is, then
the user agent must asynchronously establish a Web Socket connection (page 496) to url.
Otherwise, the constructor must raise a SYNTAX_ERR exception.
The URL attribute must return the value that was passed to the constructor.
The readyState attribute represents the state of the connection. It can have the following
values:
CONNECTING (numeric value 0)

The connection has not yet been established.
OPEN (numeric value 1)

The Web Socket connection is established (page 501) and communication is possible.
494
CLOSED (numeric value 2)
The connection has been closed or could not be opened.
When the object is created its readyState must be set to CONNECTING (0).
The send(data) method transmits data using the connection. If the connection is not
established (readyState is not OPEN), it must raise an INVALID_STATE_ERR exception. If the
connection is established, then the user agent must send data using the Web Socket (page 502).
The disconnect() method must close the Web Socket connection (page 505) or connection
attempt, if any. If the connection is already closed, it must do nothing. Closing the connection
causes a close event to be fired and the readyState attribute's value to change, as described
below (page 505).
7.3.3 WebSocket Events
The open event is fired when the Web Socket connection is established (page 501).
The close event is fired when the connection is closed (whether by the author, calling the
disconnect() method, or by the server, or by a network error).
Note: No information regarding why the connection was closed is passed to

the application in this version of this specification.
The read event is fired when when data is received for a connection. It uses the
WebSocketReadEvent interface:
interface WebSocketReadEvent : Event {

readonly attribute DOMString data;
void initWebSocketReadEvent(in DOMString typeArg, in boolean
canBubbleArg, in boolean cancelableArg, in DOMString dataArg);
void initWebSocketReadEventNS(in DOMString namespaceURI, in DOMString
typeArg, in boolean canBubbleArg, in boolean cancelableArg, in DOMString
dataArg);
};
The initWebSocketReadEvent() and initWebSocketReadEventNS() methods must initialise the

event in a manner analogous to the similarly-named methods in the DOM3 Events interfaces.
[DOM3EVENTS]
The data attribute represents the data that was received.
When the user agent is to fire a read event with data data, the user agent must dispatch an
event whose name is read, with no namespace, which does not bubble but is cancelable, which
uses the WebSocketReadEvent interface, and whose data attribute is set to data, at the given
object.
495
Events that would be fired during script execution (e.g. between the WebSocket object being
created — and thus the connection being established — and the current script completing; or,
during the execution of a read event handler) must be buffered, and those events queued up
and each one individually fired after the script has completed.
The following are the event handler DOM attributes (page 371) that must be supported by
objects implementing the WebSocket interface:
onopen
Must be invoked whenever an open event is targeted at or bubbles through the WebSocket
object.
onread
Must be invoked whenever an read event is targeted at or bubbles through the WebSocket
object.
onclose
Must be invoked whenever an close event is targeted at or bubbles through the WebSocket
object.
7.3.4 The Web Socket protocol

7.3.4.1. Client-side requirements
This section only applies to user agents.
7.3.4.1.1. Handshake
When the user agent is to establish a Web Socket connection to url, it must run the
following steps, in the background (without blocking scripts or anything like that):
1. Resolve (page 31) the URL (page 29) url.
2. If the <scheme> (page 30) component of the resulting absolute URL (page 33) is "ws",
set secure to false; otherwise, the <scheme> (page 30) component is "wss", set secure
to true.
3. Let host be the value of the <host> (page 30) component in the resulting absolute URL
(page 33).
4. If the resulting absolute URL (page 33) has a <port> (page 30) component, then let port
be that component's value; otherwise, if secure is false, let port be 81, otherwise let port
be 815.
5. Let resource name be the value of the <path> (page 30) component (which might be
empty) in the resulting absolute URL (page 33).
6. If resource name is the empty string, set it to a single character U+002F SOLIDUS (/).
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7. If the resulting absolute URL (page 33) has a <query> (page 30) component, then
append a single 003F QUESTION MARK (?) character to resource name, followed by the
value of the <query> (page 30) component.
8. If the user agent is configured to use a proxy to connect to port port, then connect to
that proxy and ask it to open a TCP/IP connection to the host given by host and the port
given by port.
For example, if the user agent uses an HTTP proxy, then if it was to try to connect to
port 80 on server example.com, it might send the following lines to the proxy
server:
CONNECT example.com HTTP/1.1
If there was a password, the connection might look like:
CONNECT example.com HTTP/1.1

Proxy-authorization: Basic ZWRuYW1vZGU6bm9jYXBlcyE=
Otherwise, if the user agent is not configured to use a proxy, then open a TCP/IP
connection to the host given by host and the port given by port.
9. If the connection could not be opened, then fail the Web Socket connection (page 501)
10. If secure is true, perform a TLS handshake over the connection. If this fails (e.g. the
server's certificate could not be verified), then fail the Web Socket connection (page
501) and abort these steps. Otherwise, all further communication on this channel must
run through the encrypted tunnel. [RFC2246]
11. Send the following bytes to the remote side (the server):
47 45 54 20
Send the resource name value, encoded as US-ASCII.
Send the following bytes:
20 48 54 54 50 2f 31 2e 31 0d 0a 55 70 67 72 61
64 65 3a 20 57 65 62 53 6f 63 6b 65 74 0d 0a 43
6f 6e 6e 65 63 74 69 6f 6e 3a 20 55 70 67 72 61
64 65 0d 0a
Note: The string "GET ", the path, " HTTP/1.1", CRLF, the string
"Upgrade: WebSocket", CRLF, and the string "Connection: Upgrade",
CRLF.
12. Send the following bytes:
48 6f 73 74 3a 20
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Send the host value, encoded as US-ASCII, if it represents a host name (and not an IP
address).
0d 0a
Note: The string "Host: ", the host, and CRLF.
4f 72 69 67 69 6e 3a 20
Send the ASCII serialization (page 366) of the origin (page 363) of the script that invoked
the WebSocket constructor.
0d 0a
Note: The string "Origin: ", the origin, and CRLF.
14. If the client has any authentication information or cookies that would be relevant to a
resource with a URL (page 29) that has a scheme of http if secure is false and https if
secure is true and is otherwise identical to url, then HTTP headers that would be
appropriate for that information should be sent at this point. [RFC2616] [RFC2109]
[RFC2965]
Each header must be on a line of its own (each ending with a CR LF sequence). For the
purposes of this step, each header must not be split into multiple lines (despite HTTP
otherwise allowing this with continuation lines).
For example, if the server had a username and password that applied to that URL, it
could send:
Authorization: Basic d2FsbGU6ZXZl
0d 0a
Note: Just a CRLF (a blank line).
16. Read the first 85 bytes from the server. If the connection closes before 85 bytes are
received, or if the first 85 bytes aren't exactly equal to the following bytes, then fail the
Web Socket connection (page 501) and abort these steps.
48 54 54 50 2f 31 2e 31 20 31 30 31 20 57 65 62
20 53 6f 63 6b 65 74 20 50 72 6f 74 6f 63 6f 6c
20 48 61 6e 64 73 68 61 6b 65 0d 0a 55 70 67 72
498
61 64 65 3a 20 57 65 62 53 6f 63 6b 65 74 0d 0a
43 6f 6e 6e 65 63 74 69 6f 6e 3a 20 55 70 67 72
61 64 65 0d 0a
Note: The string "HTTP/1.1 101 Web Socket Protocol Handshake", CRLF,
the string "Upgrade: WebSocket", CRLF, the string
"Connection: Upgrade", CRLF.
What if the response is a 401 asking for credentials?
17. Let headers be a list of name-value pairs, initially empty.
18. Header: Let name and value be empty byte arrays.
19. Read a byte from the server.
If the connection closes before this byte is received, then fail the Web Socket connection
Otherwise, handle the byte as described in the appropriate entry below:
↪ If the byte is 0x0d (ASCII CR)

If the name byte array is empty, then jump to the headers processing (page
500) step. Otherwise, fail the Web Socket connection (page 501) and abort
these steps.
↪ If the byte is 0x0a (ASCII LF)

Fail the Web Socket connection (page 501) and abort these steps.
↪ If the byte is 0x3a (ASCII ":")

Move on to the next step.
↪ If the byte is in the range 0x41 .. 0x5a (ASCII "A" .. "Z")

Append a byte whose value is the byte's value plus 0x20 to the name byte array
and redo this step for the next byte.
↪ Otherwise
Append the byte to the name byte array and redo this step for the next byte.
Note: This reads a header name, terminated by a colon, converting

upper-case ASCII letters to lowercase, and aborting if a stray CR or LF
is found.
499
↪ If the byte is 0x20 (ASCII space)
Ignore the byte and move on to the next step.
↪ Otherwise
Treat the byte as described by the list in the next step, then move on to that
next step for real.
Note: This skips past a space character after the colon, if necessary.
↪ If the byte is 0x0d (ASCII CR)

Move on to the next step.
↪ If the byte is 0x0a (ASCII LF)

Fail the Web Socket connection (page 501) and abort these steps.
↪ Otherwise
Append the byte to the name byte array and redo this step for the next byte.
Note: This reads a header value, terminated by a CRLF.
If the connection closes before this byte is received, or if the byte is not a 0x0a byte
(ASCII LF), then fail the Web Socket connection (page 501) and abort these steps.
Note: This skips past the LF byte of the CRLF after the header.
23. Append an entry to the headers list that has the name given by the string obtained by
interpreting the name byte array as a UTF-8 byte stream and the value given by the
string obtained by interpreting the value byte array as a UTF-8 byte stream.
24. Return to the header (page 499) step above.
25. Headers processing: If there is not exactly one entry in the headers list whose name is
"websocket-origin", or if there is not exactly one entry in the headers list whose name
is "websocket-location", or if there are any entries in the headers list whose names are
the empty string, then fail the Web Socket connection (page 501) and abort these steps.
26. Handle each entry in the headers list as follows:
500
↪ If the entry's name is "websocket-origin"
Assume the value is a URL (page 29). If the value does not have the same origin
(page 366) as the script that invoked the WebSocket constructor, then fail the
Web Socket connection (page 501) and abort these steps.
↪ If the entry's name is "websocket-location"

If the value is not exactly equal to the absolute URL (page 33) that resulted from
the first step (page 496) of ths algorithm, then fail the Web Socket connection
↪ If the entry's name is "set-cookie" or "set-cookie2" or another

cookie-related header name
Handle the cookie as defined by the appropriate spec, except pretend that the
resource's URL (page 29) actually has a scheme of http if secure is false and
https if secure is true and is otherwise identical to url. [RFC2109] [RFC2965]
↪ Any other name

Ignore it.
27. Change the readyState attribute's value to OPEN (1).
28. Fire a simple event (page 375) named open at the WebSocket object.
29. The Web Socket connection is established. Now the user agent must send and
receive to and from the connection as described in the next section.
To fail the Web Socket connection, the user agent must close the Web Socket connection
(page 505), and may report the problem to the user (which would be especially useful for
developers). However, user agents must not convey the failure information to the script in a way
distinguishable from the Web Socket being closed normally.
7.3.4.1.2. Data framing
Once a Web Socket connection is established (page 501), the user agent must run through the
following state machine for the bytes sent by the server.
1. Try to read a byte from the server. Let frame type be that byte.
If no byte could be read because the Web Socket connection is closed (page 505), then
abort.
2. Handle the frame type byte as follows:
If the high-order bit of the frame type byte is set (i.e. if frame type anded with
0x80 returns 0x80)
Run these steps. If at any point during these steps a read is attempted but fails
because the Web Socket connection is closed (page 505), then abort.
1. Let length be zero.
501
2. Length: Read a byte, let b be that byte.
3. Let bv be integer corresponding to the low 7 bits of b (the value you would
get by anding b with 0x7f).
4. Multiply length by 128, add bv to that result, and store the final result in
length.
5. If the high-order bit of b is set (i.e. if b anded with 0x80 returns 0x80), then
return to the step above labeled length (page 502).
6. Read length bytes.
7. Discard the read bytes.
If the high-order bit of the frame type byte is not set (i.e. if frame type anded
with 0x80 returns 0x00)
Run these steps. If at any point during these steps a read is attempted but fails
because the Web Socket connection is closed (page 505), then abort.
1. Let raw data be an empty byte array.
2. Data: Read a byte, let b be that byte.
3. If b is not 0xff, then append b to raw data and return to the previous step
(labeled data (page 502)).
4. Interpret raw data as a UTF-8 string, and store that string in data.
5. If frame type is 0x00, fire a read event (page 495) at the WebSocket object
with data data. Otherwise, discard the data.
3. Return to the first step to read the next byte.
If the user agent is faced with content that is too large to be handled appropriately, then it must
fail the Web Socket connection (page 501).
Once a Web Socket connection is established (page 501), the user agent must use the following
steps to send data using the Web Socket:
1. Send a 0x00 byte to the server.
2. Encode data using UTF-8 and send the resulting byte stream to the server.
3. Send a 0xff byte to the server.
7.3.4.2. Server-side requirements
This section only applies to servers.
502
7.3.4.2.1. Minimal handshake
Note: This section describes the minimal requirements for a server-side

implementation of Web Sockets.
Listen on a port for TCP/IP. Upon receiving a connection request, open a connection and send the
following bytes back to the client:
48 54 54 50 2f 31 2e 31 20 31 30 31 20 57 65 62
20 53 6f 63 6b 65 74 20 50 72 6f 74 6f 63 6f 6c
20 48 61 6e 64 73 68 61 6b 65 0d 0a 55 70 67 72
61 64 65 3a 20 57 65 62 53 6f 63 6b 65 74 0d 0a
43 6f 6e 6e 65 63 74 69 6f 6e 3a 20 55 70 67 72
61 64 65 0d 0a
Send the string "WebSocket-Origin" followed by a U+003A COLON (":") followed by the ASCII
serialization (page 366) of the origin from which the server is willing to accept connections,
followed by a CRLF pair (0x0d 0x0a).
For instance:
WebSocket-Origin: http://example.com
Send the string "WebSocket-Location" followed by a U+003A COLON (":") followed by the URL
(page 29) of the Web Socket script, followed by a CRLF pair (0x0d 0x0a).
For instance:
WebSocket-Location: ws://example.com:80/demo
Send another CRLF pair (0x0d 0x0a).
Read (and discard) data from the client until four bytes 0x0d 0x0a 0x0d 0x0a are read.
If the connection isn't dropped at this point, go to the data framing (page 504) section.
7.3.4.2.2. Handshake details
The previous section ignores the data that is transmitted by the client during the handshake.
The data sent by the client consists of a number of fields separated by CR LF pairs (bytes 0x0d
0x0a).
The first field consists of three tokens separated by space characters (byte 0x20). The middle
token is the path being opened. If the server supports multiple paths, then the server should
echo the value of this field in the initial handshake, as part of the URL (page 29) given on the
WebSocket-Location line (after the appropriate scheme and host).
The remaining fields consist of name-value pairs, with the name part separated from the value
part by a colon and a space (bytes 0x3a 0x20). Of these, several are interesting:
503
Host (bytes 48 6f 73 74)
The value gives the hostname that the client intended to use when opening the Web Socket.
It would be of interest in particular to virtual hosting environments, where one server might
serve multiple hosts, and might therefore want to return different data.
The right host has to be output as part of the URL (page 29) given on the
WebSocket-Location line of the handshake described above, to verify that the server
knows that it is really representing that host.
Origin (bytes 4f 72 69 67 69 6e)

The value gives the scheme, hostname, and port (if it's not the default port for the given
scheme) of the page that asked the client to open the Web Socket. It would be interesting if
the server's operator had deals with operators of other sites, since the server could then
decide how to respond (or indeed, whether to respond) based on which site was requesting
a connection.
If the server supports connections from more than one origin, then the server should echo
the value of this field in the initial handshake, on the WebSocket-Origin line.
Other fields
Other fields can be used, such as "Cookie" or "Authorization", for authentication
purposes.
7.3.4.2.3. Data framing
Note: This section only describes how to handle content that this specification
allows user agents to send (text). It doesn't handle any arbitrary content in
the same way that the requirements on user agents defined earlier handle any
content including possible future extensions to the protocols.
The server should run through the following steps to process the bytes sent by the client:
1. Read a byte from the client. Assuming everything is going according to plan, it will be a
0x00 byte. Behaviour for the server is undefined if the byte is not 0x00.
2. Let raw data be an empty byte array.
3. Data: Read a byte, let b be that byte.
4. If b is not 0xff, then append b to raw data and return to the previous step (labeled data
(page 504)).
5. Interpret raw data as a UTF-8 string, and apply whatever server-specific processing
should occur for the resulting string.
6. Return to the first step to read the next byte.
The server should run through the followin steps to send strings to the client:
504
1. Send a 0x00 byte to the client to indicate the start of a string.
2. Encode data using UTF-8 and send the resulting byte stream to the client.
3. Send a 0xff byte to the client to indicate the end of the message.
7.3.4.3. Closing the connection
To close the Web Socket connection, either the user agent or the server closes the TCP/IP
connection. There is no closing handshake. Whether the user agent or the server closes the
connection, it is said that the Web Socket connection is closed.
Servers may close the Web Socket connection (page 505) whenever desired.
User agents should not close the Web Socket connection (page 505) arbitrarily.
When the Web Socket connection is closed (page 505), the readyState attribute's value must
be changed to CLOSED (2), and the user agent must fire a simple event (page 375) named close
at the WebSocket object.
7.4 Cross-document messaging
Web browsers, for security and privacy reasons, prevent documents in different domains from
affecting each other; that is, cross-site scripting is disallowed.
While this is an important security feature, it prevents pages from different domains from
communicating even when those pages are not hostile. This section introduces a messaging
system that allows documents to communicate with each other regardless of their source
domain, in a way designed to not enable cross-site scripting attacks.
When a script invokes the postMessage(message, targetOrigin) method on a Window object,

the user agent must follow these steps:
1. If the value of the targetOrigin argument is not a single U+002A ASTERISK character
("*"), and parsing (page 29) it as a URL (page 29) fails, then throw a SYNTAX_ERR
exception and abort the overall set of steps.
2. Return from the postMessage() method, but asynchronously continue running these
steps.
3. Wait for the Window object on which the method was invoked to have finished executing
any pending scripts.
4. If the targetOrigin argument has a value other than a single literal U+002A ASTERISK
character ("*"), and the active document (page 354) of the browsing context (page 354)
505
of the Window object on which the method was invoked does not have the same origin
(page 366) as targetOrigin, then abort these steps silently.
5. Create an event that uses the MessageEvent interface, with the event name message,
which does not bubble, is cancelable, and has no default action. The data attribute must
be set to the value passed as the message argument to the postMessage() method, the
origin attribute must be set to the Unicode serialization (page 366) of the origin (page
363) of the script that invoked the method, the lastEventId attribute must be set to the
empty string, and the source attribute must be set to the Window object of the default
view (page 354) of the browsing context (page 354) for which the Document object with
which the script is associated is the active document (page 354).
6. Dispatch the event created in the previous step at the Window object on which the
method was invoked.
⚠Warning! Authors should check the origin attribute to ensure that messages are
only accepted from domains that they expect to receive messages from. Otherwise,
bugs in the author's message handling code could be exploited by hostile sites.
⚠Warning! Authors should not use the wildcard keyword ("*") in the targetOrigin
argument in messages that contain any confidential information, as otherwise there
is no way to guarantee that the message is only delivered to the recipient to which it
was intended.
For example, if document A contains an object element that contains document B, and
script in document A calls postMessage() on document B, then a message event will be
fired on that element, marked as originating from document A. The script in document A
might look like:
var o = document.getElementsByTagName('object')[0];
o.contentWindow.postMessage('Hello world', 'http://b.example.org/');
To register an event handler for incoming events, the script would use addEventListener()
(or similar mechanisms). For example, the script in document B might look like:
document.addEventListener('message', receiver, false);

function receiver(e) {
if (e.origin == 'http://example.com') {
if (e.data == 'Hello world') {
e.source.postMessage('Hello', e.origin);
} else {
alert(e.data);
}
}
}
This script first checks the domain is the expected domain, and then looks at the message,
which it either displays to the user, or responds to by sending a message back to the
document which sent the message in the first place.
506
⚠Warning! The integrity of this API is based on the inability for scripts of one origin
(page 363) to post arbitrary events (using dispatchEvent() or otherwise) to objects in
other origins (those that are not the same (page 366)).
Note: Implementors are urged to take extra care in the implementation of this
feature. It allows authors to transmit information from one domain to another
domain, which is normally disallowed for security reasons. It also requires that
UAs be careful to allow access to certain properties but not others.
507
8. Repetition templates
See WF2 for now
508
9. The HTML syntax
9.1 Writing HTML documents
This section only applies to documents, authoring tools, and markup generators. In particular, it
does not apply to conformance checkers; conformance checkers must use the requirements
given in the next section ("parsing HTML documents").
Documents must consist of the following parts, in the given order:
1. Optionally, a single U+FEFF BYTE ORDER MARK (BOM) character.
2. Any number of comments (page 518) and space characters (page 36).
3. A DOCTYPE (page 509).
5. The root element, in the form of an html element (page 510).
The various types of content mentioned above are described in the next few sections.
In addition, there are some restrictions on how character encoding declarations are to be
serialized, as discussed in the section on that topic.
Space characters before the root html element, and space characters at the
start of the html element and before the head element, will be dropped when
the document is parsed; space characters after the root html element will be
parsed as if they were at the end of the body element. Thus, space characters
around the root element do not round-trip.
It is suggested that newlines be inserted after the DOCTYPE, after any

comments that are before the root element, after the html element's start tag
(if it is not omitted (page 514)), and after any comments that are inside the
html element but before the head element.
9.1.1 The DOCTYPE
A DOCTYPE is a mostly useless, but required, header.
Note: DOCTYPEs are required for legacy reasons. When omitted, browsers
tend to use a different rendering mode that is incompatible with some
specifications. Including the DOCTYPE in a document ensures that the browser
makes a best-effort attempt at following the relevant specifications.
A DOCTYPE must consist of the following characters, in this order:
509
1. A U+003C LESS-THAN SIGN (<) character.
2. A U+0021 EXCLAMATION MARK (!) character.
3. A U+0044 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D or U+0064 LATIN SMALL LETTER D character.
4. A U+004F LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O or U+006F LATIN SMALL LETTER O character.
5. A U+0043 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C or U+0063 LATIN SMALL LETTER C character.
6. A U+0054 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T or U+0074 LATIN SMALL LETTER T character.
7. A U+0059 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y or U+0079 LATIN SMALL LETTER Y character.
8. A U+0050 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER P or U+0070 LATIN SMALL LETTER P character.
9. A U+0045 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E or U+0065 LATIN SMALL LETTER E character.
10. One or more space characters (page 36).
11. A U+0048 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER H or U+0068 LATIN SMALL LETTER H character.
12. A U+0054 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T or U+0074 LATIN SMALL LETTER T character.
13. A U+004D LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M or U+006D LATIN SMALL LETTER M character.
14. A U+004C LATIN CAPITAL LETTER L or U+006C LATIN SMALL LETTER L character.
15. Zero or more space characters (page 36).
16. A U+003E GREATER-THAN SIGN (>) character.
Note: In other words, <!DOCTYPE HTML>, case-insensitively.
9.1.2 Elements
There are five different kinds of elements: void elements, CDATA elements, RCDATA elements,
foreign elements, and normal elements.
Void elements
base, command, event-source, link, meta, hr, br, img, embed, param, area, col, input,
source
CDATA elements
style, script
RCDATA elements
title, textarea
Foreign elements
Elements from the MathML namespace (page 593)
Normal elements
All other allowed HTML elements (page 27) are normal elements.
Tags are used to delimit the start and end of elements in the markup. CDATA, RCDATA, and
normal elements have a start tag (page 511) to indicate where they begin, and an end tag (page
512) to indicate where they end. The start and end tags of certain normal elements can be
omitted (page 514), as described later. Those that cannot be omitted must not be omitted. Void
elements only have a start tag; end tags must not be specified for void elements. Foreign
elements must either have a start tag and an end tag, or a start tag that is marked as
self-closing, in which case they must not have an end tag.
The contents of the element must be placed between just after the start tag (which might be
implied, in certain cases (page 514)) and just before the end tag (which again, might be implied
in certain cases (page 514)). The exact allowed contents of each individual element depends on
510
the content model of that element, as described earlier in this specification. Elements must not
contain content that their content model disallows. In addition to the restrictions placed on the
contents by those content models, however, the five types of elements have additional syntactic
requirements.
Void elements can't have any contents (since there's no end tag, no content can be put between
the start tag and the end tag).
CDATA elements can have text (page 516), though it has restrictions (page 516) described
below.
RCDATA elements can have text (page 516) and character references (page 517), but the text
must not contain an ambiguous ampersand (page 517). There are also further restrictions (page
516) described below.
Foreign elements whose start tag is marked as self-closing can't have any contents (since,
again, as there's no end tag, no content can be put between the start tag and the end tag).
Foreign elements whose start tag is not marked as self-closing can have text (page 516),
character references (page 517), CDATA blocks (page 517), other elements (page 510), and
comments (page 518), but the text must not contain the character U+003C LESS-THAN SIGN (<)
or an ambiguous ampersand (page 517).
Normal elements can have text (page 516), character references (page 517), other elements
(page 510), and comments (page 518), but the text must not contain the character U+003C
LESS-THAN SIGN (<) or an ambiguous ampersand (page 517). Some normal elements also have
yet more restrictions (page 515) on what content they are allowed to hold, beyond the
restrictions imposed by the content model and those described in this paragraph. Those
restrictions are described below.
Tags contain a tag name, giving the element's name. HTML elements all have names that only
use characters in the range U+0030 DIGIT ZERO .. U+0039 DIGIT NINE, U+0061 LATIN SMALL
LETTER A .. U+007A LATIN SMALL LETTER Z, U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A .. U+005A LATIN
CAPITAL LETTER Z, and U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS (-). In the HTML syntax, tag names may be
written with any mix of lower- and uppercase letters that, when converted to all-lowercase,
matches the element's tag name; tag names are case-insensitive.
9.1.2.1. Start tags
Start tags must have the following format:
1. The first character of a start tag must be a U+003C LESS-THAN SIGN (<).
2. The next few characters of a start tag must be the element's tag name (page 511).
3. If there are to be any attributes in the next step, there must first be one or more space
4. Then, the start tag may have a number of attributes, the syntax for which (page 512) is
described below. Attributes may be separated from each other by one or more space
511
5. After the attributes, there may be one or more space characters (page 36). (Some
attributes are required to be followed by a space. See the attributes section (page 512)
below.)
6. Then, if the element is one of the void elements, or if the element is a foreign element,
then there may be a single U+002F SOLIDUS (/) character. This character has no effect
on void elements, but on foreign elements it marks the start tag as self-closing.
7. Finally, start tags must be closed by a U+003E GREATER-THAN SIGN (>) character.
9.1.2.2. End tags
End tags must have the following format:
1. The first character of an end tag must be a U+003C LESS-THAN SIGN (<).
2. The second character of an end tag must be a U+002F SOLIDUS (/).
3. The next few characters of an end tag must be the element's tag name (page 511).
4. After the tag name, there may be one or more space characters (page 36).
5. Finally, end tags must be closed by a U+003E GREATER-THAN SIGN (>) character.
9.1.2.3. Attributes
Attributes for an element are expressed inside the element's start tag.
Attributes have a name and a value. Attribute names must consist of one or more characters
other than the space characters (page 36), U+0000 NULL, U+0022 QUOTATION MARK ("),
U+0027 APOSTROPHE ('), U+003E GREATER-THAN SIGN (>), U+002F SOLIDUS (/), and U+003D
EQUALS SIGN (=) characters, the control characters, and any characters that are not defined by
Unicode. In the HTML syntax, attribute names may be written with any mix of lower- and
uppercase letters that, when converted to all-lowercase, matches the attribute's name; attribute
names are case-insensitive.
Attribute values are a mixture of text (page 516) and character references (page 517), except
with the additional restriction that the text cannot contain an ambiguous ampersand (page 517).
Attributes can be specified in four different ways:
Empty attribute syntax

Just the attribute name (page 512).
In the following example, the disabled attribute is given with the empty attribute
syntax:
<input disabled>
If an attribute using the empty attribute syntax is to be followed by another attribute, then
there must be a space character (page 36) separating the two.
512
Unquoted attribute value syntax
The attribute name (page 512), followed by zero or more space characters (page 36),
followed by a single U+003D EQUALS SIGN character, followed by zero or more space
characters (page 36), followed by the attribute value (page 512), which, in addition to the
requirements given above for attribute values, must not contain any literal space characters
(page 36), a U+0022 QUOTATION MARK (") characters, U+0027 APOSTROPHE (')
characters, U+003D EQUALS SIGN (=) characters, or U+003E GREATER-THAN SIGN (>)
characters.
In the following example, the value attribute is given with the unquoted attribute value
syntax:
<input value=yes>
If an attribute using the unquoted attribute syntax is to be followed by another attribute or
by one of the optional U+002F SOLIDUS (/) characters allowed in step 6 of the start tag
syntax above, then there must be a space character (page 36) separating the two.
Single-quoted attribute value syntax

characters (page 36), followed by a single U+0027 APOSTROPHE (') character, followed by
the attribute value (page 512), which, in addition to the requirements given above for
attribute values, must not contain any literal U+0027 APOSTROPHE (') characters, and
finally followed by a second single U+0027 APOSTROPHE (') character.
In the following example, the type attribute is given with the single-quoted attribute
value syntax:
<input type='checkbox'>
If an attribute using the single-quoted attribute syntax is to be followed by another
attribute, then there must be a space character (page 36) separating the two.
Double-quoted attribute value syntax

characters (page 36), followed by a single U+0022 QUOTATION MARK (") character,
followed by the attribute value (page 512), which, in addition to the requirements given
above for attribute values, must not contain any literal U+0022 QUOTATION MARK (")
characters, and finally followed by a second single U+0022 QUOTATION MARK (") character.
In the following example, the name attribute is given with the double-quoted attribute
value syntax:
<input name="be evil">

If an attribute using the double-quoted attribute syntax is to be followed by another
attribute, then there must be a space character (page 36) separating the two.
513
9.1.2.4. Optional tags
Certain tags can be omitted.
An html element's start tag may be omitted if the first thing inside the html element is not a
comment (page 518).
An html element's end tag may be omitted if the html element is not immediately followed a
comment (page 518) and the element contains a body element that is either not empty or
whose start tag has not been omitted.
A head element's start tag may be omitted if the first thing inside the head element is an
element.
A head element's end tag may be omitted if the head element is not immediately followed by a
space character (page 36) or a comment (page 518).
A body element's start tag may be omitted if the first thing inside the body element is not a
space character (page 36) or a comment (page 518), except if the first thing inside the body
element is a script or style element.
A body element's end tag may be omitted if the body element is not immediately followed by a
comment (page 518) and the element is either not empty or its start tag has not been omitted.
A li element's end tag may be omitted if the li element is immediately followed by another li
element or if there is no more content in the parent element.
A dt element's end tag may be omitted if the dt element is immediately followed by another dt
element or a dd element.
A dd element's end tag may be omitted if the dd element is immediately followed by another dd
element or a dt element, or if there is no more content in the parent element.
A p element's end tag may be omitted if the p element is immediately followed by an address,
article, aside, blockquote, datagrid, dialog, dir, div, dl, fieldset, footer, form, h1, h2,
h3, h4, h5, h6, header, hr, menu, nav, ol, p, pre, section, table, or ul, element, or if there is no
more content in the parent element.
An rt element's end tag may be omitted if the rt element is immediately followed by an rt or

rp element, or if there is no more content in the parent element.
An rp element's end tag may be omitted if the rp element is immediately followed by an rt or

rp element, or if there is no more content in the parent element.
An optgroup element's end tag may be omitted if the optgroup element is immediately followed
by another optgroup element, or if there is no more content in the parent element.
An option element's end tag may be omitted if the option element is immediately followed by
another option element, or if there is no more content in the parent element.
514
A colgroup element's start tag may be omitted if the first thing inside the colgroup element is
a col element, and if the element is not immediately preceded by another colgroup element
whose end tag has been omitted.
A colgroup element's end tag may be omitted if the colgroup element is not immediately
followed by a space character (page 36) or a comment (page 518).
A thead element's end tag may be omitted if the thead element is immediately followed by a
tbody or tfoot element.
A tbody element's start tag may be omitted if the first thing inside the tbody element is a tr
element, and if the element is not immediately preceded by a tbody, thead, or tfoot element
whose end tag has been omitted.
A tbody element's end tag may be omitted if the tbody element is immediately followed by a
tbody or tfoot element, or if there is no more content in the parent element.
A tfoot element's end tag may be omitted if the tfoot element is immediately followed by a
tbody element, or if there is no more content in the parent element.
A tr element's end tag may be omitted if the tr element is immediately followed by another tr
element, or if there is no more content in the parent element.
A td element's end tag may be omitted if the td element is immediately followed by a td or th

A th element's end tag may be omitted if the th element is immediately followed by a td or th

However, a start tag must never be omitted if it has any attributes.
9.1.2.5. Restrictions on content models
For historical reasons, certain elements have extra restrictions beyond even the restrictions
given by their content model.
An optgroup element must not contain optgroup elements, even though these elements are
technically allowed to be nested according to the content models described in this specification.
(If an optgroup element is put inside another in the markup, it will in fact imply an optgroup end
tag before it.)
A table element must not contain tr elements, even though these elements are technically
allowed inside table elements according to the content models described in this specification.
(If a tr element is put inside a table in the markup, it will in fact imply a tbody start tag before
it.)
A single U+000A LINE FEED (LF) character may be placed immediately after the start tag of pre
and textarea elements. This does not affect the processing of the element. The otherwise
optional U+000A LINE FEED (LF) character must be included if the element's contents start with
515
that character (because otherwise the leading newline in the contents would be treated like the
optional newline, and ignored).
The following two pre blocks are equivalent:
<pre>Hello</pre>
<pre>
Hello</pre>
9.1.2.6. Restrictions on the contents of CDATA and RCDATA elements
The text in CDATA and RCDATA elements must not contain any occurrences of the string "</"
(U+003C LESS-THAN SIGN, U+002F SOLIDUS) followed by characters that case-insensitively
match the tag name of the element followed by one of U+0009 CHARACTER TABULATION,
U+000A LINE FEED (LF), U+000C FORM FEED (FF), U+0020 SPACE, U+003E GREATER-THAN
SIGN (>), or U+002F SOLIDUS (/), unless that string is part of an escaping text span (page 516).
An escaping text span is a span of text (page 516) that starts with an escaping text span start
(page 516) that is not itself in an escaping text span (page 516), and ends at the next escaping
text span end (page 516). There cannot be any character references (page 517) inside an
escaping text span (page 516).
An escaping text span start is a part of text (page 516) that consists of the four character
sequence "" (U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS, U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS, U+003E GREATER-THAN
SIGN) whose U+003E GREATER-THAN SIGN (>).
An escaping text span start (page 516) may share its U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS characters with
its corresponding escaping text span end (page 516).
The text in CDATA and RCDATA elements must not have an escaping text span start (page 516)
that is not followed by an escaping text span end (page 516).
9.1.3 Text
Text is allowed inside elements, attributes, and comments. Text must consist of Unicode
characters. Text must not contain U+0000 characters. Text must not contain permanently
undefined Unicode characters. Text must not contain control characters other than space
characters (page 36). Extra constraints are placed on what is and what is not allowed in text
based on where the text is to be put, as described in the other sections.
516
9.1.3.1. Newlines
Newlines in HTML may be represented either as U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN (CR) characters,
U+000A LINE FEED (LF) characters, or pairs of U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN (CR), U+000A LINE
FEED (LF) characters in that order.
9.1.4 Character references
In certain cases described in other sections, text (page 516) may be mixed with character
references. These can be used to escape characters that couldn't otherwise legally be included
in text (page 516).
Character references must start with a U+0026 AMPERSAND (&). Following this, there are three
possible kinds of character references:
Named character references

The ampersand must be followed by one of the names given in the named character
references (page 597) section, using the same case. The name must be one that is
terminated by a U+003B SEMICOLON (;) character.
Decimal numeric character reference

The ampersand must be followed by a U+0023 NUMBER SIGN (#) character, followed by one
or more digits in the range U+0030 DIGIT ZERO .. U+0039 DIGIT NINE, representing a
base-ten integer that itself is a Unicode code point that is not U+0000, U+000D, in the
range U+0080 .. U+009F, or in the range 0xD800 .. 0xDFFF (surrogates). The digits must
then be followed by a U+003B SEMICOLON character (;).
Hexadecimal numeric character reference

The ampersand must be followed by a U+0023 NUMBER SIGN (#) character, which must be
followed by either a U+0078 LATIN SMALL LETTER X or a U+0058 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER X
character, which must then be followed by one or more digits in the range U+0030 DIGIT
ZERO .. U+0039 DIGIT NINE, U+0061 LATIN SMALL LETTER A .. U+0066 LATIN SMALL
LETTER F, and U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A .. U+0046 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER F,
representing a base-sixteen integer that itself is a Unicode code point that is not U+0000,
U+000D, in the range U+0080 .. U+009F, or in the range 0xD800 .. 0xDFFF (surrogates).
The digits must then be followed by a U+003B SEMICOLON character (;).
An ambiguous ampersand is a U+0026 AMPERSAND (&) character that is followed by some

text (page 516) other than a space character (page 36), a U+003C LESS-THAN SIGN character
('<'), or another U+0026 AMPERSAND (&) character.
9.1.5 CDATA blocks
CDATA blocks must start with the character sequence U+003C LESS-THAN SIGN, U+0021
EXCLAMATION MARK, U+005B LEFT SQUARE BRACKET, U+0043 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C,
U+0044 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D, U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, U+0054 LATIN CAPITAL
LETTER T, U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, U+005B LEFT SQUARE BRACKET (<![CDATA[).
Following this sequence, the block may have text (page 516), with the additional restriction that
517
the text must not contain the three character sequence U+005D RIGHT SQUARE BRACKET,
U+005D RIGHT SQUARE BRACKET, U+003E GREATER-THAN SIGN (]]>). Finally, the CDATA block
must be ended by the three character sequence U+005D RIGHT SQUARE BRACKET, U+005D
RIGHT SQUARE BRACKET, U+003E GREATER-THAN SIGN (]]>).
9.1.6 Comments
Comments must start with the four character sequence U+003C LESS-THAN SIGN, U+0021
EXCLAMATION MARK, U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS, U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS ().
9.2 Parsing HTML documents
This section only applies to user agents, data mining tools, and conformance checkers.
The rules for parsing XML documents (page 71) (and thus XHTML (page 24) documents) into
DOM trees are covered by the XML and Namespaces in XML specifications, and are out of scope
of this specification. [XML] [XMLNS]
For HTML documents (page 71), user agents must use the parsing rules described in this section
to generate the DOM trees. Together, these rules define what is referred to as the HTML
parser.
While the HTML form of HTML5 bears a close resemblance to SGML and XML, it
is a separate language with its own parsing rules.
Some earlier versions of HTML (in particular from HTML2 to HTML4) were
based on SGML and used SGML parsing rules. However, few (if any) web
browsers ever implemented true SGML parsing for HTML documents; the only
user agents to strictly handle HTML as an SGML application have historically
been validators. The resulting confusion — with validators claiming documents
to have one representation while widely deployed Web browsers interoperably
implemented a different representation — has wasted decades of productivity.
This version of HTML thus returns to a non-SGML basis.
Authors interested in using SGML tools in their authoring pipeline are

encouraged to use XML tools and the XML serialization of HTML5.
This specification defines the parsing rules for HTML documents, whether they are syntactically
correct or not. Certain points in the parsing algorithm are said to be parse errors. The error
518
handling for parse errors is well-defined: user agents must either act as described below when
encountering such problems, or must abort processing at the first error that they encounter for
which they do not wish to apply the rules described below.
Conformance checkers must report at least one parse error condition to the user if one or more
parse error conditions exist in the document and must not report parse error conditions if none
exist in the document. Conformance checkers may report more than one parse error condition if
more than one parse error conditions exist in the document. Conformance checkers are not
required to recover from parse errors.
Note: Parse errors are only errors with the syntax of HTML. In addition to
checking for parse errors, conformance checkers will also verify that the
document obeys all the other conformance requirements described in this
specification.
9.2.1 Overview of the parsing model
The input to the HTML parsing process consists of a stream of Unicode characters, which is
passed through a tokenisation (page 534) stage (lexical analysis) followed by a tree construction
(page 553) stage (semantic analysis). The output is a Document object.
Note: Implementations that do not support scripting (page 22) do not have to
actually create a DOM Document object, but the DOM tree in such cases is still
used as the model for the rest of the specification.
In the common case, the data handled by the tokenisation stage comes from the network, but it
can also come from script (page 94), e.g. using the document.write() API.
519
There is only one set of state for the tokeniser stage and the tree construction stage, but the
tree construction stage is reentrant, meaning that while the tree construction stage is handling
one token, the tokeniser might be resumed, causing further tokens to be emitted and processed
before the first token's processing is complete.
In the following example, the tree construction stage will be called upon to handle a "p"
start tag token while handling the "script" start tag token:
...
<script>
document.write('<p>');
</script>
...
520
9.2.2 The input stream
The stream of Unicode characters that consists the input to the tokenisation stage will be initially
seen by the user agent as a stream of bytes (typically coming over the network or from the local
file system). The bytes encode the actual characters according to a particular character
encoding, which the user agent must use to decode the bytes into characters.
Note: For XML documents, the algorithm user agents must use to determine
the character encoding is given by the XML specification. This section does not
apply to XML documents. [XML]
9.2.2.1. Determining the character encoding
In some cases, it might be impractical to unambiguously determine the encoding before parsing
the document. Because of this, this specification provides for a two-pass mechanism with an
optional pre-scan. Implementations are allowed, as described below, to apply a simplified
parsing algorithm to whatever bytes they have available before beginning to parse the
document. Then, the real parser is started, using a tentative encoding derived from this
pre-parse and other out-of-band metadata. If, while the document is being loaded, the user
agent discovers an encoding declaration that conflicts with this information, then the parser can
get reinvoked to perform a parse of the document with the real encoding.
User agents must use the following algorithm (the encoding sniffing algorithm) to determine
the character encoding to use when decoding a document in the first pass. This algorithm takes
as input any out-of-band metadata available to the user agent (e.g. the Content-Type metadata
(page 63) of the document) and all the bytes available so far, and returns an encoding and a
confidence. The confidence is either tentative or certain. The encoding used, and whether the
confidence in that encoding is tentative or confident, is used during the parsing (page 561) to
determine whether to change the encoding (page 528).
1. If the transport layer specifies an encoding, return that encoding with the confidence
(page 521) certain, and abort these steps.
2. The user agent may wait for more bytes of the resource to be available, either in this
step or at any later step in this algorithm. For instance, a user agent might wait 500ms
or 512 bytes, whichever came first. In general preparsing the source to find the encoding
improves performance, as it reduces the need to throw away the data structures used
when parsing upon finding the encoding information. However, if the user agent delays
too long to obtain data to determine the encoding, then the cost of the delay could
outweigh any performance improvements from the preparse.
3. For each of the rows in the following table, starting with the first one and going down, if
there are as many or more bytes available than the number of bytes in the first column,
and the first bytes of the file match the bytes given in the first column, then return the
encoding given in the cell in the second column of that row, with the confidence (page
521) certain, and abort these steps:
521
Bytes in Hexadecimal Encoding
FE FF UTF-16BE
FF FE UTF-16LE
EF BB BF UTF-8
Note: This step looks for Unicode Byte Order Marks (BOMs).
4. Otherwise, the user agent will have to search for explicit character encoding information
in the file itself. This should proceed as follows:
Let position be a pointer to a byte in the input stream, initially pointing at the first byte.
If at any point during these substeps the user agent either runs out of bytes or decides
that scanning further bytes would not be efficient, then skip to the next step of the
overall character encoding detection algorithm. User agents may decide that scanning
any bytes is not efficient, in which case these substeps are entirely skipped.
Now, repeat the following "two" steps until the algorithm aborts (either because user
agent aborts, as described above, or because a character encoding is found):
1. If position points to:
↪ A sequence of bytes starting with: 0x3C 0x21 0x2D 0x2D (ASCII

''
sequence) and comes after the 0x3C byte that was found. (The two
0x2D bytes can be the same as the those in the '"), set the escape flag (page
534) to false.
In any case, emit the input character as a character token. Stay in the data state
(page 535).
↪ EOF
Emit an end-of-file token.
↪ Anything else
Emit the input character as a character token. Stay in the data state (page 535).
535
Character reference data state
(This cannot happen if the content model flag (page 534) is set to the CDATA state.)
Attempt to consume a character reference (page 550), with no additional allowed character
(page 550).
If nothing is returned, emit a U+0026 AMPERSAND character token.
Otherwise, emit the character token that was returned.
Finally, switch to the data state (page 535).
Tag open state

The behavior of this state depends on the content model flag (page 534).
If the content model flag (page 534) is set to the RCDATA or CDATA states
Consume the next input character (page 528). If it is a U+002F SOLIDUS (/) character,
switch to the close tag open state (page 537). Otherwise, emit a U+003C LESS-THAN
SIGN character token and reconsume the current input character in the data state
(page 535).
If the content model flag (page 534) is set to the PCDATA state
↪ U+0021 EXCLAMATION MARK (!)

Switch to the markup declaration open state (page 543).
↪ U+002F SOLIDUS (/)
Switch to the close tag open state (page 537).
↪ U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A through to U+005A LATIN CAPITAL
LETTER Z
Create a new start tag token, set its tag name to the lowercase version of the
input character (add 0x0020 to the character's code point), then switch to the
tag name state (page 537). (Don't emit the token yet; further details will be
filled in before it is emitted.)
↪ U+0061 LATIN SMALL LETTER A through to U+007A LATIN SMALL LETTER Z
Create a new start tag token, set its tag name to the input character, then
switch to the tag name state (page 537). (Don't emit the token yet; further
details will be filled in before it is emitted.)
Parse error (page 518). Emit a U+003C LESS-THAN SIGN character token and a
U+003E GREATER-THAN SIGN character token. Switch to the data state (page
535).
↪ U+003F QUESTION MARK (?)
Parse error (page 518). Switch to the bogus comment state (page 542).
↪ Anything else
Parse error (page 518). Emit a U+003C LESS-THAN SIGN character token and
reconsume the current input character in the data state (page 535).
536
Close tag open state
If the content model flag (page 534) is set to the RCDATA or CDATA states but no start tag
token has ever been emitted by this instance of the tokeniser (fragment case (page 596)),
or, if the content model flag (page 534) is set to the RCDATA or CDATA states and the next
few characters do not match the tag name of the last start tag token emitted (case
insensitively), or if they do but they are not immediately followed by one of the following
characters:
• U+0009 CHARACTER TABULATION

• U+000A LINE FEED (LF)
• U+000C FORM FEED (FF)
• U+0020 SPACE
• U+003E GREATER-THAN SIGN (>)
• U+002F SOLIDUS (/)
• EOF
...then emit a U+003C LESS-THAN SIGN character token, a U+002F SOLIDUS character
token, and switch to the data state (page 535) to process the next input character (page
528).
Otherwise, if the content model flag (page 534) is set to the PCDATA state, or if the next few
characters do match that tag name, consume the next input character (page 528):
↪ U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A through to U+005A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z

Create a new end tag token, set its tag name to the lowercase version of the input
character (add 0x0020 to the character's code point), then switch to the tag name
state (page 537). (Don't emit the token yet; further details will be filled in before it
is emitted.)
↪ U+0061 LATIN SMALL LETTER A through to U+007A LATIN SMALL LETTER Z
Create a new end tag token, set its tag name to the input character, then switch to
the tag name state (page 537). (Don't emit the token yet; further details will be
filled in before it is emitted.)
Parse error (page 518). Switch to the data state (page 535).
↪ EOF
Parse error (page 518). Emit a U+003C LESS-THAN SIGN character token and a
U+002F SOLIDUS character token. Reconsume the EOF character in the data state
(page 535).
↪ Anything else
Parse error (page 518). Switch to the bogus comment state (page 542).
Tag name state

↪ U+0009 CHARACTER TABULATION

↪ U+000A LINE FEED (LF)
↪ U+000C FORM FEED (FF)
↪ U+0020 SPACE
Switch to the before attribute name state (page 538).
537
Emit the current tag token. Switch to the data state (page 535).
Append the lowercase version of the current input character (add 0x0020 to the
character's code point) to the current tag token's tag name. Stay in the tag name
state (page 537).
↪ EOF
Parse error (page 518). Emit the current tag token. Reconsume the EOF character
in the data state (page 535).
Switch to the self-closing start tag state (page 542).
↪ Anything else
Append the current input character to the current tag token's tag name. Stay in the
tag name state (page 537).
Before attribute name state


↪ U+0020 SPACE
Stay in the before attribute name state (page 538).
Start a new attribute in the current tag token. Set that attribute's name to the
lowercase version of the current input character (add 0x0020 to the character's
code point), and its value to the empty string. Switch to the attribute name state
(page 538).
↪ U+0022 QUOTATION MARK (")
↪ U+0027 APOSTROPHE (')
↪ U+003D EQUALS SIGN (=)
Parse error (page 518). Treat it as per the "anything else" entry below.
↪ EOF
↪ Anything else
current input character, and its value to the empty string. Switch to the attribute
name state (page 538).
Attribute name state

538
↪ U+0020 SPACE
Switch to the after attribute name state (page 539).
Switch to the before attribute value state (page 540).
Append the lowercase version of the current input character (add 0x0020 to the
character's code point) to the current attribute's name. Stay in the attribute name
state (page 538).
↪ EOF
↪ Anything else
Append the current input character to the current attribute's name. Stay in the
attribute name state (page 538).
When the user agent leaves the attribute name state (and before emitting the tag token, if
appropriate), the complete attribute's name must be compared to the other attributes on
the same token; if there is already an attribute on the token with the exact same name,
then this is a parse error (page 518) and the new attribute must be dropped, along with the
value that gets associated with it (if any).
After attribute name state


↪ U+0020 SPACE
Stay in the after attribute name state (page 539).
Switch to the before attribute value state (page 540).
lowercase version of the current input character (add 0x0020 to the character's
539
code point), and its value to the empty string. Switch to the attribute name state
(page 538).
↪ EOF
↪ Anything else
current input character, and its value to the empty string. Switch to the attribute
Before attribute value state


↪ U+0020 SPACE
Stay in the before attribute value state (page 540).
Switch to the attribute value (double-quoted) state (page 540).
Switch to the attribute value (unquoted) state (page 541) and reconsume this input
character.
Switch to the attribute value (single-quoted) state (page 541).
↪ EOF
Parse error (page 518). Emit the current tag token. Reconsume the character in the
↪ Anything else
Append the current input character to the current attribute's value. Switch to the
attribute value (unquoted) state (page 541).
Attribute value (double-quoted) state


Switch to the after attribute value (quoted) state (page 542).
Switch to the character reference in attribute value state (page 542), with the
additional allowed character (page 550) being U+0022 QUOTATION MARK (").
540
↪ EOF
↪ Anything else
Append the current input character to the current attribute's value. Stay in the
attribute value (double-quoted) state (page 540).
Attribute value (single-quoted) state


Switch to the after attribute value (quoted) state (page 542).
Switch to the character reference in attribute value state (page 542), with the
additional allowed character (page 550) being U+0027 APOSTROPHE (').
↪ EOF
↪ Anything else
attribute value (single-quoted) state (page 541).
Attribute value (unquoted) state


↪ U+0020 SPACE
Switch to the character reference in attribute value state (page 542), with no
additional allowed character (page 550).
↪ EOF
↪ Anything else
attribute value (unquoted) state (page 541).
541
Character reference in attribute value state
Attempt to consume a character reference (page 550).
If nothing is returned, append a U+0026 AMPERSAND character to the current attribute's

value.
Otherwise, append the returned character token to the current attribute's value.
Finally, switch back to the attribute value state that you were in when were switched into
this state.
After attribute value (quoted) state


↪ U+0020 SPACE
↪ EOF
↪ Anything else
Parse error (page 518). Reconsume the character in the before attribute name state
(page 538).
Self-closing start tag state


Set the self-closing flag of the current tag token. Emit the current tag token. Switch
to the data state (page 535).
↪ EOF
↪ Anything else
Parse error (page 518). Reconsume the character in the before attribute name state
(page 538).
Bogus comment state

(This can only happen if the content model flag (page 534) is set to the PCDATA state.)
Consume every character up to the first U+003E GREATER-THAN SIGN character (>) or the
end of the file (EOF), whichever comes first. Emit a comment token whose data is the
542
concatenation of all the characters starting from and including the character that caused
the state machine to switch into the bogus comment state, up to and including the last
consumed character before the U+003E character, if any, or up to the end of the file
otherwise. (If the comment was started by the end of the file (EOF), the token is empty.)
Switch to the data state (page 535).
If the end of the file was reached, reconsume the EOF character.
Markup declaration open state

(This can only happen if the content model flag (page 534) is set to the PCDATA state.)
If the next two characters are both U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS (-) characters, consume those
two characters, create a comment token whose data is the empty string, and switch to the
comment start state (page 543).
Otherwise, if the next seven characters are a case-insensitive match for the word
"DOCTYPE", then consume those characters and switch to the DOCTYPE state (page 545).
Otherwise, if the insertion mode is "in foreign content (page 587)" and the current node
(page 530) is not an element in the HTML namespace (page 593) and the next seven
characters are a case-sensitive match for the string "[CDATA[" (the five uppercase letters
"CDATA" with a U+005B LEFT SQUARE BRACKET character before and after), then consume
those characters and switch to the CDATA block state (page 550) (which is unrelated to the
content model flag (page 534)'s CDATA state).
Otherwise, this is a parse error (page 518). Switch to the bogus comment state (page 542).
The next character that is consumed, if any, is the first character that will be in the
comment.
Comment start state


Switch to the comment start dash state (page 543).
Parse error (page 518). Emit the comment token. Switch to the data state (page
535).
↪ EOF
Parse error (page 518). Emit the comment token. Reconsume the EOF character in
the data state (page 535).
↪ Anything else
Append the input character to the comment token's data. Switch to the comment
state (page 544).
Comment start dash state


Switch to the comment end state (page 544)
543
Parse error (page 518). Emit the comment token. Switch to the data state (page
535).
↪ EOF
↪ Anything else
Append a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS (-) character and the input character to the
comment token's data. Switch to the comment state (page 544).
Comment state

Switch to the comment end dash state (page 544)
↪ EOF
↪ Anything else
Append the input character to the comment token's data. Stay in the comment
state (page 544).
Comment end dash state


Switch to the comment end state (page 544)
↪ EOF
↪ Anything else
Append a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS (-) character and the input character to the
comment token's data. Switch to the comment state (page 544).
Comment end state


Emit the comment token. Switch to the data state (page 535).
Parse error (page 518). Append a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS (-) character to the
comment token's data. Stay in the comment end state (page 544).
↪ EOF
544
↪ Anything else
Parse error (page 518). Append two U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS (-) characters and the
input character to the comment token's data. Switch to the comment state (page
544).
DOCTYPE state

↪ U+0020 SPACE
Switch to the before DOCTYPE name state (page 545).
↪ Anything else
Parse error (page 518). Reconsume the current character in the before DOCTYPE
Before DOCTYPE name state


↪ U+0020 SPACE
Stay in the before DOCTYPE name state (page 545).
Parse error (page 518). Create a new DOCTYPE token. Set its force-quirks flag to on.
Emit the token. Switch to the data state (page 535).
↪ EOF
Parse error (page 518). Create a new DOCTYPE token. Set its force-quirks flag to on.
Emit the token. Reconsume the EOF character in the data state (page 535).
↪ Anything else
Create a new DOCTYPE token. Set the token's name to the current input character.
Switch to the DOCTYPE name state (page 545).
DOCTYPE name state

First, consume the next input character (page 528):

↪ U+0020 SPACE
Switch to the after DOCTYPE name state (page 546).
Emit the current DOCTYPE token. Switch to the data state (page 535).
545
↪ EOF
Parse error (page 518). Set the DOCTYPE token's force-quirks flag to on. Emit that
DOCTYPE token. Reconsume the EOF character in the data state (page 535).
↪ Anything else
Append the current input character to the current DOCTYPE token's name. Stay in
the DOCTYPE name state (page 545).
After DOCTYPE name state


↪ U+0020 SPACE
Stay in the after DOCTYPE name state (page 546).
↪ EOF
↪ Anything else
If the next six characters are a case-insensitive match for the word "PUBLIC", then
consume those characters and switch to the before DOCTYPE public identifier state
(page 546).
Otherwise, if the next six characters are a case-insensitive match for the word
"SYSTEM", then consume those characters and switch to the before DOCTYPE
system identifier state (page 548).
Otherwise, this is the parse error (page 518). Set the DOCTYPE token's force-quirks
flag to on. Switch to the bogus DOCTYPE state (page 549).
Before DOCTYPE public identifier state


↪ U+0020 SPACE
Stay in the before DOCTYPE public identifier state (page 546).
Set the DOCTYPE token's public identifier to the empty string (not missing), then
switch to the DOCTYPE public identifier (double-quoted) state (page 547).
Set the DOCTYPE token's public identifier to the empty string (not missing), then
switch to the DOCTYPE public identifier (single-quoted) state (page 547).
546
DOCTYPE token. Switch to the data state (page 535).
↪ EOF
↪ Anything else
Parse error (page 518). Set the DOCTYPE token's force-quirks flag to on. Switch to
the bogus DOCTYPE state (page 549).
DOCTYPE public identifier (double-quoted) state


Switch to the after DOCTYPE public identifier state (page 547).
↪ EOF
↪ Anything else
Append the current input character to the current DOCTYPE token's public
identifier. Stay in the DOCTYPE public identifier (double-quoted) state (page 547).
DOCTYPE public identifier (single-quoted) state


Switch to the after DOCTYPE public identifier state (page 547).
↪ EOF
↪ Anything else
Append the current input character to the current DOCTYPE token's public
identifier. Stay in the DOCTYPE public identifier (single-quoted) state (page 547).
After DOCTYPE public identifier state


↪ U+0020 SPACE
Stay in the after DOCTYPE public identifier state (page 547).
547
Set the DOCTYPE token's system identifier to the empty string (not missing), then
switch to the DOCTYPE system identifier (double-quoted) state (page 548).
switch to the DOCTYPE system identifier (single-quoted) state (page 549).
↪ EOF
↪ Anything else
Before DOCTYPE system identifier state


↪ U+0020 SPACE
Stay in the before DOCTYPE system identifier state (page 548).
switch to the DOCTYPE system identifier (double-quoted) state (page 548).
switch to the DOCTYPE system identifier (single-quoted) state (page 549).
↪ EOF
↪ Anything else
DOCTYPE system identifier (double-quoted) state


Switch to the after DOCTYPE system identifier state (page 549).
548
↪ EOF
↪ Anything else
Append the current input character to the current DOCTYPE token's system
identifier. Stay in the DOCTYPE system identifier (double-quoted) state (page 548).
DOCTYPE system identifier (single-quoted) state


Switch to the after DOCTYPE system identifier state (page 549).
↪ EOF
↪ Anything else
Append the current input character to the current DOCTYPE token's system
identifier. Stay in the DOCTYPE system identifier (single-quoted) state (page 549).
After DOCTYPE system identifier state


↪ U+0020 SPACE
Stay in the after DOCTYPE system identifier state (page 549).
↪ EOF
↪ Anything else
Parse error (page 518). Switch to the bogus DOCTYPE state (page 549). (This does
not set the DOCTYPE token's force-quirks flag to on.)
Bogus DOCTYPE state


Emit the DOCTYPE token. Switch to the data state (page 535).
↪ EOF
Emit the DOCTYPE token. Reconsume the EOF character in the data state (page
535).
549
↪ Anything else
Stay in the bogus DOCTYPE state (page 549).
CDATA block state

(This can only happen if the content model flag (page 534) is set to the PCDATA state, and
is unrelated to the content model flag (page 534)'s CDATA state.)
Consume every character up to the next occurrence of the three character sequence
U+005D RIGHT SQUARE BRACKET U+005D RIGHT SQUARE BRACKET U+003E
GREATER-THAN SIGN (]]>), or the end of the file (EOF), whichever comes first. Emit a series
of text tokens consisting of all the characters consumed except the matching three
character sequence at the end (if one was found before the end of the file).
Switch to the data state (page 535).
If the end of the file was reached, reconsume the EOF character.
9.2.4.1. Tokenising character references
This section defines how to consume a character reference. This definition is used when
parsing character references in text (page 536) and in attributes (page 542).
The behavior depends on the identity of the next character (the one immediately after the
U+0026 AMPERSAND character):

↪ U+0020 SPACE
↪ U+003C LESS-THAN SIGN
↪ U+0026 AMPERSAND
↪ EOF
↪ The additional allowed character, if there is one

Not a character reference. No characters are consumed, and nothing is returned. (This
is not an error, either.)
↪ U+0023 NUMBER SIGN (#)

Consume the U+0023 NUMBER SIGN.
The behavior further depends on the character after the U+0023 NUMBER SIGN:
↪ U+0078 LATIN SMALL LETTER X

↪ U+0058 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER X
Consume the X.
550
Follow the steps below, but using the range of characters U+0030 DIGIT ZERO
through to U+0039 DIGIT NINE, U+0061 LATIN SMALL LETTER A through to
U+0066 LATIN SMALL LETTER F, and U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, through
to U+0046 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER F (in other words, 0-9, A-F, a-f).
When it comes to interpreting the number, interpret it as a hexadecimal

number.
↪ Anything else
Follow the steps below, but using the range of characters U+0030 DIGIT ZERO
through to U+0039 DIGIT NINE (i.e. just 0-9).
When it comes to interpreting the number, interpret it as a decimal number.
Consume as many characters as match the range of characters given above.
If no characters match the range, then don't consume any characters (and unconsume
the U+0023 NUMBER SIGN character and, if appropriate, the X character). This is a
parse error (page 518); nothing is returned.
Otherwise, if the next character is a U+003B SEMICOLON, consume that too. If it isn't,
there is a parse error (page 518).
If one or more characters match the range, then take them all and interpret the string of
characters as a number (either hexadecimal or decimal as appropriate).
If that number is one of the numbers in the first column of the following table, then this
is a parse error (page 518). Find the row with that number in the first column, and
return a character token for the Unicode character given in the second column of that
row.
Number Unicode character

0x0D U+000A LINE FEED (LF)
0x80 U+20AC EURO SIGN ('€')
0x81 U+FFFD REPLACEMENT CHARACTER
0x82 U+201A SINGLE LOW-9 QUOTATION MARK ('‚')
0x83 U+0192 LATIN SMALL LETTER F WITH HOOK ('ƒ')
0x84 U+201E DOUBLE LOW-9 QUOTATION MARK ('„')
0x85 U+2026 HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS ('…')
0x86 U+2020 DAGGER ('†')
0x87 U+2021 DOUBLE DAGGER ('‡')
0x88 U+02C6 MODIFIER LETTER CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT ('ˆ')
0x89 U+2030 PER MILLE SIGN ('‰')
0x8A U+0160 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S WITH CARON ('Š')
0x8B U+2039 SINGLE LEFT-POINTING ANGLE QUOTATION MARK ('‹')
0x8C U+0152 LATIN CAPITAL LIGATURE OE ('Œ')
0x8D U+FFFD REPLACEMENT CHARACTER
0x8E U+017D LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z WITH CARON ('Ž')
551
Number Unicode character
0x8F U+FFFD REPLACEMENT CHARACTER
0x90 U+FFFD REPLACEMENT CHARACTER
0x91 U+2018 LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK ('‘')
0x92 U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK ('’')
0x93 U+201C LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK ('“')
0x94 U+201D RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK ('”')
0x95 U+2022 BULLET ('•')
0x96 U+2013 EN DASH ('–')
0x97 U+2014 EM DASH ('—')
0x98 U+02DC SMALL TILDE ('˜')
0x99 U+2122 TRADE MARK SIGN ('™')
0x9A U+0161 LATIN SMALL LETTER S WITH CARON ('š')
0x9B U+203A SINGLE RIGHT-POINTING ANGLE QUOTATION MARK ('›')
0x9C U+0153 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE OE ('œ')
0x9D U+FFFD REPLACEMENT CHARACTER
0x9E U+017E LATIN SMALL LETTER Z WITH CARON ('ž')
0x9F U+0178 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y WITH DIAERESIS ('Ÿ')
Otherwise, if the number is in the range 0x0000 to 0x0008, 0x000E to 0x001F, 0x007F
to 0x009F, 0xD800 to 0xDFFF , 0xFDD0 to 0xFDDF, or is one of 0xFFFE, 0xFFFF,
0x1FFFE, 0x1FFFF, 0x2FFFE, 0x2FFFF, 0x3FFFE, 0x3FFFF, 0x4FFFE, 0x4FFFF, 0x5FFFE,
0x5FFFF, 0x6FFFE, 0x6FFFF, 0x7FFFE, 0x7FFFF, 0x8FFFE, 0x8FFFF, 0x9FFFE, 0x9FFFF,
0xAFFFE, 0xAFFFF, 0xBFFFE, 0xBFFFF, 0xCFFFE, 0xCFFFF, 0xDFFFE, 0xDFFFF, 0xEFFFE,
0xEFFFF, 0xFFFFE, 0xFFFFF, 0x10FFFE, or 0x10FFFF, or is higher than 0x10FFFF, then
this is a parse error (page 518); return a character token for the U+FFFD REPLACEMENT
CHARACTER character instead.
Otherwise, return a character token for the Unicode character whose code point is that
number.
↪ Anything else
Consume the maximum number of characters possible, with the consumed characters
case-sensitively matching one of the identifiers in the first column of the named
character references (page 597) table.
If no match can be made, then this is a parse error (page 518). No characters are
consumed, and nothing is returned.
If the last character matched is not a U+003B SEMICOLON (;), there is a parse error
(page 518).
If the character reference is being consumed as part of an attribute (page 542), and the
last character matched is not a U+003B SEMICOLON (;), and the next character is in the
range U+0030 DIGIT ZERO to U+0039 DIGIT NINE, U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A to
U+005A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z, or U+0061 LATIN SMALL LETTER A to U+007A LATIN
552
SMALL LETTER Z, then, for historical reasons, all the characters that were matched after
the U+0026 AMPERSAND (&) must be unconsumed, and nothing is returned.
Otherwise, return a character token for the character corresponding to the character
reference name (as given by the second column of the named character references
(page 597) table).
If the markup contains I'm &notit; I tell you, the character reference is parsed
as "not", as in, I'm ¬it; I tell you. But if the markup was I'm ∉ I tell
you, the character reference would be parsed as "notin;", resulting in I'm ∉ I tell
you.
9.2.5 Tree construction
The input to the tree construction stage is a sequence of tokens from the tokenisation (page
534) stage. The tree construction stage is associated with a DOM Document object when a parser
is created. The "output" of this stage consists of dynamically modifying or extending that
document's DOM tree.
This specification does not define when an interactive user agent has to render the Document so
that it is available to the user, or when it has to begin accepting user input.
As each token is emitted from the tokeniser, the user agent must process the token according to
the rules given in the section corresponding to the current insertion mode.
When the steps below require the UA to insert a character into a node, if that node has a child
immediately before where the character is to be inserted, and that child is a Text node, then the
character must be appended to that Text node; otherwise, a new Text node whose data is just
that character must be inserted in the appropriate place.
DOM mutation events must not fire for changes caused by the UA parsing the document.
(Conceptually, the parser is not mutating the DOM, it is constructing it.) This includes the parsing
of any content inserted using document.write() and document.writeln() calls.
[DOM3EVENTS]
Note: Not all of the tag names mentioned below are conformant tag names in
this specification; many are included to handle legacy content. They still form
part of the algorithm that implementations are required to implement to claim
conformance.
Note: The algorithm described below places no limit on the depth of the DOM
tree generated, or on the length of tag names, attribute names, attribute
values, text nodes, etc. While implementors are encouraged to avoid arbitrary
limits, it is recognized that practical concerns (page 24) will likely force user
agents to impose nesting depths.
553
9.2.5.1. Creating and inserting elements
When the steps below require the UA to create an element for a token in a particular
namespace, the UA must create a node implementing the interface appropriate for the element
type corresponding to the tag name of the token in the given namespace (as given in the
specification that defines that element, e.g. for an a element in the HTML namespace (page
593), this specification defines it to be the HTMLAnchorElement interface), with the tag name
being the name of that element, with the node being in the given namespace, and with the
attributes on the node being those given in the given token.
The interface appropriate for an element in the HTML namespace (page 593) that is not defined
in this specification is HTMLElement. The interface appropriate for an element in another
namespace that is not defined by that namespace's specification is Element.
When the steps below require the UA to insert an HTML element for a token, the UA must first
create an element for the token (page 554) in the HTML namespace (page 593), and then
append this node to the current node (page 530), and push it onto the stack of open elements
(page 530) so that it is the new current node (page 530).
The steps below may also require that the UA insert an HTML element in a particular place, in
which case the UA must follow the same steps except that it must insert or append the new
node in the location specified instead of appending it to the current node (page 530). (This
happens in particular during the parsing of tables with invalid content.)
When the steps below require the UA to insert a foreign element for a token, the UA must
first create an element for the token (page 554) in the given namespace, and then append this
node to the current node (page 530), and push it onto the stack of open elements (page 530) so
that it is the new current node (page 530). If the newly created element has an xmlns attribute
in the XMLNS namespace (page 593) whose value is not exactly the same as the element's
namespace, that is a parse error (page 518).
When the steps below require the user agent to adjust foreign attributes for a token, then, if
any of the attributes on the token match the strings given in the first column of the following
table, let the attribute be a namespaced attribute, with the prefix being the string given in the
corresponding cell in the second column, the local name being the string given in the
corresponding cell in the third column, and the namespace being the namespace given in the
corresponding cell in the fourth column. (This fixes the use of namespaced attributes, in
particular xml:lang.)
Attribute name Prefix Local name Namespace

xlink:actuate xlink actuate XLink namespace (page 593)
xlink:arcrole xlink arcrole XLink namespace (page 593)
xlink:href xlink href XLink namespace (page 593)
xlink:role xlink role XLink namespace (page 593)
xlink:show xlink show XLink namespace (page 593)
xlink:title xlink title XLink namespace (page 593)
xlink:type xlink type XLink namespace (page 593)
xml:base xml base XML namespace (page 593)
xml:lang xml lang XML namespace (page 593)
554
Attribute name Prefix Local name Namespace
xml:space xml space XML namespace (page 593)
xmlns (none) xmlns XMLNS namespace (page 593)
xmlns:xlink xmlns xlink XMLNS namespace (page 593)
The generic CDATA parsing algorithm and the generic RCDATA parsing algorithm consist
of the following steps. These algorithms are always invoked in response to a start tag token.
1. Create an element for the token (page 554) in the HTML namespace (page 593).
2. Append the new element to the current node (page 530).
3. If the algorithm that was invoked is the generic CDATA parsing algorithm (page 555),
switch the tokeniser's content model flag (page 534) to the CDATA state; otherwise the
algorithm invoked was the generic RCDATA parsing algorithm (page 555), switch the
tokeniser's content model flag (page 534) to the RCDATA state.
4. Then, collect all the character tokens that the tokeniser returns until it returns a token
that is not a character token, or until it stops tokenising.
5. If this process resulted in a collection of character tokens, append a single Text node,
whose contents is the concatenation of all those tokens' characters, to the new element
node.
6. The tokeniser's content model flag (page 534) will have switched back to the PCDATA
state.
7. If the next token is an end tag token with the same tag name as the start tag token,
ignore it. Otherwise, it's an end-of-file token, and this is a parse error (page 518).
9.2.5.2. Closing elements that have implied end tags
When the steps below require the UA to generate implied end tags, then, while the current
node (page 530) is a dd element, a dt element, an li element, an option element, an optgroup
element, a p element, an rp element, or an rt element, the UA must pop the current node (page
530) off the stack of open elements (page 530).
If a step requires the UA to generate implied end tags but lists an element to exclude from the
process, then the UA must perform the above steps as if that element was not in the above list.
9.2.5.3. Foster parenting
Foster parenting happens when content is misnested in tables.
When a node node is to be foster parented, the node node must be inserted into the foster
parent element (page 556), and the current table (page 531) must be marked as tainted. (Once
the current table (page 531) has been tainted (page 555), whitespace characters are inserted
into the foster parent element (page 556) instead of the current node (page 530).)
555
The foster parent element is the parent element of the last table element in the stack of
open elements (page 530), if there is a table element and it has such a parent element. If there
is no table element in the stack of open elements (page 530) (fragment case (page 596)), then
the foster parent element (page 556) is the first element in the stack of open elements (page
530) (the html element). Otherwise, if there is a table element in the stack of open elements
(page 530), but the last table element in the stack of open elements (page 530) has no parent,
or its parent node is not an element, then the foster parent element (page 556) is the element
before the last table element in the stack of open elements (page 530).
If the foster parent element (page 556) is the parent element of the last table element in the
stack of open elements (page 530), then node must be inserted immediately before the last
table element in the stack of open elements (page 530) in the foster parent element (page
556); otherwise, node must be appended to the foster parent element (page 556).
9.2.5.4. The "initial" insertion mode
When the insertion mode is "initial (page 556)", tokens must be handled as follows:
↪ A character token that is one of one of U+0009 CHARACTER TABULATION, U+000A

LINE FEED (LF), U+000C FORM FEED (FF), or U+0020 SPACE
Ignore the token.
↪ A comment token
Append a Comment node to the Document object with the data attribute set to the data
given in the comment token.
↪ A DOCTYPE token
If the DOCTYPE token's name does not case-insensitively match the string "HTML", or if
the token's public identifier is not missing, or if the token's system identifier is not
missing, then there is a parse error (page 518). Conformance checkers may, instead of
reporting this error, switch to a conformance checking mode for another language (e.g.
based on the DOCTYPE token a conformance checker could recognize that the
document is an HTML4-era document, and defer to an HTML4 conformance checker.)
Append a DocumentType node to the Document node, with the name attribute set to the
name given in the DOCTYPE token; the publicId attribute set to the public identifier
given in the DOCTYPE token, or the empty string if the public identifier was missing; the
systemId attribute set to the system identifier given in the DOCTYPE token, or the
empty string if the system identifier was missing; and the other attributes specific to
DocumentType objects set to null and empty lists as appropriate. Associate the
DocumentType node with the Document object so that it is returned as the value of the
doctype attribute of the Document object.
Then, if the DOCTYPE token matches one of the conditions in the following list, then set
the document to quirks mode (page 74):
• The force-quirks flag is set to on.

• The name is set to anything other than "HTML".
556
• The public identifier starts with: "+//Silmaril//dtd html Pro v0r11
19970101//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//AdvaSoft Ltd//DTD HTML 3.0 asWedit +
extensions//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//AS//DTD HTML 3.0 asWedit +
extensions//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0 Level 1//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0 Level 2//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0 Strict Level 1//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0 Strict Level 2//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0 Strict//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.1E//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//IETF//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//IETF//DTD HTML 3//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//IETF//DTD HTML Level 0//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//IETF//DTD HTML Strict Level 0//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//IETF//DTD HTML Strict//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//IETF//DTD HTML//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//Metrius//DTD Metrius
Presentational//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//Microsoft//DTD Internet Explorer 2.0
HTML Strict//"
HTML//"
Tables//"
HTML Strict//"
HTML//"
Tables//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//Netscape Comm. Corp.//DTD HTML//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//Netscape Comm. Corp.//DTD Strict
HTML//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//O'Reilly and Associates//DTD HTML
2.0//"
Extended 1.0//"
Extended Relaxed 1.0//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//SoftQuad Software//DTD HoTMetaL PRO
6.0::19990601::extensions to HTML 4.0//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//SoftQuad//DTD HoTMetaL PRO
4.0::19971010::extensions to HTML 4.0//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//Spyglass//DTD HTML 2.0 Extended//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//SQ//DTD HTML 2.0 HoTMetaL +
extensions//"
557
• The public identifier starts with: "-//Sun Microsystems Corp.//DTD HotJava
HTML//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//Sun Microsystems Corp.//DTD HotJava
Strict HTML//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3 1995-03-24//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Draft//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2S Draft//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Frameset//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//W3C//DTD HTML Experimental
19960712//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//W3C//DTD HTML Experimental 970421//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//W3O//DTD W3 HTML 3.0//"
• The public identifier is set to: "-//W3O//DTD W3 HTML Strict 3.0//EN//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//WebTechs//DTD Mozilla HTML 2.0//"
• The public identifier starts with: "-//WebTechs//DTD Mozilla HTML//"
• The public identifier is set to: "-/W3C/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional/EN"
• The public identifier is set to: "HTML"
• The system identifier is set to: "http://www.ibm.com/data/dtd/v11/
ibmxhtml1-transitional.dtd"
• The system identifier is missing and the public identifier starts with:
"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Frameset//"
• The system identifier is missing and the public identifier starts with:
"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//"
Otherwise, if the DOCTYPE token matches one of the conditions in the following list,
then set the document to limited quirks mode (page 74):
• The public identifier starts with: "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Frameset//"

• The public identifier starts with: "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//"
• The system identifier is not missing and the public identifier starts with:
"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Frameset//"
• The system identifier is not missing and the public identifier starts with:
"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//"
The name, system identifier, and public identifier strings must be compared to the
values given in the lists above in a case-insensitive manner. A system identifier whose
value is the empty string is not considered missing for the purposes of the conditions
above.
Then, switch the insertion mode to "before html (page 559)".
↪ Anything else
Parse error (page 518).
Set the document to quirks mode (page 74).
Switch the insertion mode to "before html (page 559)", then reprocess the current
token.
558
9.2.5.5. The "before html" insertion mode
When the insertion mode is "before html (page 559)", tokens must be handled as follows:
↪ A DOCTYPE token
Parse error (page 518). Ignore the token.
↪ A comment token

Ignore the token.
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "html"

Create an element for the token (page 554) in the HTML namespace (page 593).
Append it to the Document object. Put this element in the stack of open elements (page
530).
If the token has an attribute "manifest", then resolve (page 31) the value of that
attribute to an absolute URL (page 33), and if that is successful, run the application
cache selection algorithm (page 397) with the resulting absolute URL (page 33).
Otherwise, if there is no such attribute or resolving it fails, run the application cache
selection algorithm (page 399) with no manifest.
Switch the insertion mode to "before head (page 559)".
↪ Anything else
Create an HTMLElement node with the tag name html, in the HTML namespace (page
593). Append it to the Document object. Put this element in the stack of open elements
(page 530).
Run the application cache selection algorithm (page 399) with no manifest.
Switch the insertion mode to "before head (page 559)", then reprocess the current
token.
Should probably make end tags be ignored, so that "</head><html>" puts
the comment before the root node (or should we?)
The root element can end up being removed from the Document object, e.g. by scripts; nothing
in particular happens in such cases, content continues being appended to the nodes as
described in the next section.
9.2.5.6. The "before head" insertion mode
When the insertion mode is "before head (page 559)", tokens must be handled as follows:
559
Ignore the token.
↪ A comment token
Append a Comment node to the current node (page 530) with the data attribute set to
the data given in the comment token.
↪ A DOCTYPE token

Process the token using the rules for (page 529) the "in body (page 565)" insertion
mode.
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "head"

Insert an HTML element (page 554) for the token.
Set the head element pointer (page 533) to the newly created head element.
Switch the insertion mode to "in head (page 560)".
↪ An end tag whose tag name is one of: "head", "br"

Act as if a start tag token with the tag name "head" and no attributes had been seen,
then reprocess the current token.
↪ Any other end tag

↪ Anything else
Act as if a start tag token with the tag name "head" and no attributes had been seen,
then reprocess the current token.
Note: This will result in an empty head element being generated, with
the current token being reprocessed in the "after head (page 564)"
insertion mode.
9.2.5.7. The "in head" insertion mode
When the insertion mode is "in head (page 560)", tokens must be handled as follows:

Insert the character (page 553) into the current node (page 530).
↪ A comment token
560
↪ A DOCTYPE token

mode.
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "base", "command", "event-source", "link"
Insert an HTML element (page 554) for the token. Immediately pop the current node
(page 530) off the stack of open elements (page 530).
Acknowledge the token's self-closing flag (page 534), if it is set.
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "meta"

If the element has a charset attribute, and its value is a supported encoding, and the
confidence (page 521) is currently tentative, then change the encoding (page 528) to
the encoding given by the value of the charset attribute.
Otherwise, if the element has a content attribute, and applying the algorithm for
extracting an encoding from a Content-Type (page 64) to its value returns a supported
encoding encoding, and the confidence (page 521) is currently tentative, then change
the encoding (page 528) to the encoding encoding.
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "title"

Follow the generic RCDATA parsing algorithm (page 555).
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "noscript", if the scripting flag (page 534) is
enabled
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "noframes", "style"

Follow the generic CDATA parsing algorithm (page 555).
disabled
Switch the insertion mode to "in head noscript (page 563)".
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "script"

Mark the element as being "parser-inserted" (page 300). This ensures that, if the script
is external, any document.write() calls in the script will execute in-line, instead of
blowing the document away, as would happen in most other cases.
561
Switch the tokeniser's content model flag (page 534) to the CDATA state.
Then, collect all the character tokens that the tokeniser returns until it returns a token
If this process resulted in a collection of character tokens, append a single Text node to
the script element node whose contents is the concatenation of all those tokens'
characters.
The tokeniser's content model flag (page 534) will have switched back to the PCDATA
state.
If the next token is not an end tag token with the tag name "script", then this is a parse
error (page 518); mark the script element as "already executed" (page 299).
Otherwise, the token is the script element's end tag, so ignore it.
If the parser was originally created for the HTML fragment parsing algorithm (page 596),
then mark the script element as "already executed" (page 299), and skip the rest of
the processing described for this token (including the part below where "pending
external scripts (page 302)" are executed). (fragment case (page 596))
Note: Marking the script element as "already executed" prevents it

from executing when it is inserted into the document a few paragraphs
below. Thus, scripts missing their end tags and scripts that were
inserted using innerHTML aren't executed.
Let the old insertion point have the same value as the current insertion point (page
528). Let the insertion point (page 528) be just before the next input character (page
528).
Append the new element to the current node (page 530). Special processing occurs
when a script element is inserted into a document (page 300) that might cause some
script to execute, which might cause new characters to be inserted into the tokeniser
(page 96).
Let the insertion point (page 528) have the value of the old insertion point. (In other
words, restore the insertion point (page 528) to the value it had before the previous
paragraph. This value might be the "undefined" value.)
At this stage, if there is a pending external script (page 302), then:
↪ If the tree construction stage is being called reentrantly (page 520), say
from a call to document.write():
Abort the processing of any nested invocations of the tokeniser, yielding control
back to the caller. (Tokenisation will resume when the caller returns to the
"outer" tree construction stage.)
↪ Otherwise:
Follow these steps:
562
1. Let the script be the pending external script (page 302). There is no
longer a pending external script (page 302).
2. Pause (page 29) until the script has completed loading.
3. Let the insertion point (page 528) be just before the next input
character (page 528).
4. Execute the script (page 302).
5. Let the insertion point (page 528) be undefined again.
6. If there is once again a pending external script (page 302), then repeat
these steps from step 1.
↪ An end tag whose tag name is "head"

Pop the current node (page 530) (which will be the head element) off the stack of open
Switch the insertion mode to "after head (page 564)".
↪ An end tag whose tag name is "br"

Act as described in the "anything else" entry below.

↪ Anything else
Act as if an end tag token with the tag name "head" had been seen, and reprocess the
current token.
In certain UAs, some elements don't trigger the "in body" mode straight away, but
instead get put into the head. Do we want to copy that?
9.2.5.8. The "in head noscript" insertion mode
When the insertion mode is "in head noscript (page 563)", tokens must be handled as follows:
↪ A DOCTYPE token

mode.
563
↪ An end tag whose tag name is "noscript"
Pop the current node (page 530) (which will be a noscript element) from the stack of
open elements (page 530); the new current node (page 530) will be a head element.
Switch the insertion mode to "in head (page 560)".

↪ A comment token
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "link", "meta", "noframes", "style"
Process the token using the rules for (page 529) the "in head (page 560)" insertion
mode.
↪ An end tag whose tag name is one of: "br"

Act as described in the "anything else" entry below.
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "head", "noscript"

↪ Anything else
Parse error (page 518). Act as if an end tag with the tag name "noscript" had been seen
and reprocess the current token.
9.2.5.9. The "after head" insertion mode
When the insertion mode is "after head (page 564)", tokens must be handled as follows:

↪ A comment token
↪ A DOCTYPE token

mode.
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "body"

564
Switch the insertion mode to "in body (page 565)".
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "frameset"

Switch the insertion mode to "in frameset (page 589)".
↪ A start tag token whose tag name is one of: "base", "link", "meta", "noframes",
"script", "style", "title"
Push the node pointed to by the head element pointer (page 533) onto the stack of open
mode.
Pop the current node (page 530) (which will be the node pointed to by the head element
pointer (page 533)) off the stack of open elements (page 530).

↪ Anything else
Act as if a start tag token with the tag name "body" and no attributes had been seen,
and then reprocess the current token.
9.2.5.10. The "in body" insertion mode
When the insertion mode is "in body (page 565)", tokens must be handled as follows:
↪ A character token
Reconstruct the active formatting elements (page 532), if any.
Insert the token's character (page 553) into the current node (page 530).
↪ A comment token
↪ A DOCTYPE token

Parse error (page 518). For each attribute on the token, check to see if the attribute is
already present on the top element of the stack of open elements (page 530). If it is not,
add the attribute and its corresponding value to that element.
565
↪ A start tag token whose tag name is one of: "base", "command", "event-source",
"link", "meta", "noframes", "script", "style", "title"
mode.
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "body"

If the second element on the stack of open elements (page 530) is not a body element,
or, if the stack of open elements (page 530) has only one node on it, then ignore the
token. (fragment case (page 596))
Otherwise, for each attribute on the token, check to see if the attribute is already
present on the body element (the second element) on the stack of open elements (page
530). If it is not, add the attribute and its corresponding value to that element.
↪ An end-of-file token
If there is a node in the stack of open elements (page 530) that is not either a dd
element, a dt element, an li element, a p element, a tbody element, a td element, a
tfoot element, a th element, a thead element, a tr element, the body element, or the
html element, then this is a parse error (page 518).
Stop parsing (page 592).
↪ An end tag whose tag name is "body"

If the stack of open elements (page 530) does not have a body element in scope (page
531), this is a parse error (page 518); ignore the token.
Otherwise, if there is a node in the stack of open elements (page 530) that is not either
a dd element, a dt element, an li element, a p element, a tbody element, a td
element, a tfoot element, a th element, a thead element, a tr element, the body
element, or the html element, then this is a parse error (page 518).
Switch the insertion mode to "after body (page 589)". Otherwise, ignore the token.
↪ An end tag whose tag name is "html"

Act as if an end tag with tag name "body" had been seen, then, if that token wasn't
ignored, reprocess the current token.
Note: The fake end tag token here can only be ignored in the fragment
case (page 596).
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "address", "article", "aside", "blockquote",
"center", "datagrid", "details", "dialog", "dir", "div", "dl", "fieldset", "figure",
"footer", "h1", "h2", "h3", "h4", "h5", "h6", "header", "menu", "nav", "ol", "p",
"section", "ul"
If the stack of open elements (page 530) has a p element in scope (page 531), then act
as if an end tag with the tag name "p" had been seen.
566
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "pre", "listing"

If the next token is a U+000A LINE FEED (LF) character token, then ignore that token
and move on to the next one. (Newlines at the start of pre blocks are ignored as an
authoring convenience.)
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "form"

If the form element pointer (page 533) is not null, then this is a parse error (page 518);
ignore the token.
Otherwise:
Insert an HTML element (page 554) for the token, and set the form element pointer to
point to the element created.
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "li"

Run the following algorithm:
1. Initialise node to be the current node (page 530) (the bottommost node of the
stack).
2. If node is an li element, then act as if an end tag with the tag name "li" had
been seen, then jump to the last step.
3. If node is not in the formatting (page 531) category, and is not in the phrasing
(page 531) category, and is not an address, div, or p element, then jump to the
last step.
4. Otherwise, set node to the previous entry in the stack of open elements (page
530) and return to step 2.
5. If the stack of open elements (page 530) has a p element in scope (page 531),
then act as if an end tag with the tag name "p" had been seen.
Finally, insert an HTML element (page 554) for the token.
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "dd", "dt"

Run the following algorithm:
stack).
567
2. If node is a dd or dt element, then act as if an end tag with the same tag name
as node had been seen, then jump to the last step.
3. If node is not in the formatting (page 531) category, and is not in the phrasing
(page 531) category, and is not an address, div, or p element, then jump to the
last step.
4. Otherwise, set node to the previous entry in the stack of open elements (page
530) and return to step 2.
5. If the stack of open elements (page 530) has a p element in scope (page 531),
then act as if an end tag with the tag name "p" had been seen.
Finally, insert an HTML element (page 554) for the token.
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "plaintext"

Switch the content model flag (page 534) to the PLAINTEXT state.
Note: Once a start tag with the tag name "plaintext" has been seen,
that will be the last token ever seen other than character tokens (and
the end-of-file token), because there is no way to switch the content
model flag (page 534) out of the PLAINTEXT state.
↪ An end tag whose tag name is one of: "address", "article", "aside", "blockquote",
"center", "datagrid", "details", "dialog", "dir", "div", "dl", "fieldset", "figure",
"footer", "header", "listing", "menu", "nav", "ol", "pre", "section", "ul"
If the stack of open elements (page 530) does not have an element in scope (page 531)
with the same tag name as that of the token, then this is a parse error (page 518);
ignore the token.
Otherwise, run these steps:
1. Generate implied end tags (page 555).
2. If the current node (page 530) is not an element with the same tag name as
that of the token, then this is a parse error (page 518).
3. Pop elements from the stack of open elements (page 530) until an element with
the same tag name as the token has been popped from the stack.
↪ An end tag whose tag name is "form"

Set the form element pointer (page 533) to null.
568
ignore the token.
↪ An end tag whose tag name is "p"

with the same tag name as that of the token, then this is a parse error (page 518); act
as if a start tag with the tag name p had been seen, then reprocess the current token.
1. Generate implied end tags (page 555), except for elements with the same tag
name as the token.
↪ An end tag whose tag name is one of: "dd", "dt", "li"
ignore the token.
1. Generate implied end tags (page 555), except for elements with the same tag
name as the token.
↪ An end tag whose tag name is one of: "h1", "h2", "h3", "h4", "h5", "h6"
whose tag name is one of "h1", "h2", "h3", "h4", "h5", or "h6", then this is a parse error
(page 518); ignore the token.
569
3. Pop elements from the stack of open elements (page 530) until an element
whose tag name is one of "h1", "h2", "h3", "h4", "h5", or "h6" has been popped
from the stack.
↪ An end tag whose tag name is "sarcasm"

Take a deep breath, then act as described in the "any other end tag" entry below.
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "a"

If the list of active formatting elements (page 532) contains an element whose tag name
is "a" between the end of the list and the last marker on the list (or the start of the list if
there is no marker on the list), then this is a parse error (page 518); act as if an end tag
with the tag name "a" had been seen, then remove that element from the list of active
formatting elements (page 532) and the stack of open elements (page 530) if the end
tag didn't already remove it (it might not have if the element is not in table scope (page
532)).
In the non-conforming stream <a href="a">a<table><a href="b">b</table>x,

the first a element would be closed upon seeing the second one, and the "x"
character would be inside a link to "b", not to "a". This is despite the fact that the
outer a element is not in table scope (meaning that a regular </a> end tag at the
start of the table wouldn't close the outer a element).
Insert an HTML element (page 554) for the token. Add that element to the list of active
formatting elements (page 532).
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "b", "big", "em", "font", "i", "s", "small",
"strike", "strong", "tt", "u"
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "nobr"

If the stack of open elements (page 530) has a nobr element in scope (page 531), then
this is a parse error (page 518); act as if an end tag with the tag name "nobr" had been
seen, then once again reconstruct the active formatting elements (page 532), if any.
570
↪ An end tag whose tag name is one of: "a", "b", "big", "em", "font", "i", "nobr", "s",
"small", "strike", "strong", "tt", "u"
Follow these steps:
1. Let the formatting element be the last element in the list of active formatting
elements (page 532) that:
• is between the end of the list and the last scope marker in the list, if
any, or the start of the list otherwise, and
• has the same tag name as the token.
If there is no such node, or, if that node is also in the stack of open elements
(page 530) but the element is not in scope (page 531), then this is a parse error
(page 518); ignore the token, and abort these steps.
Otherwise, if there is such a node, but that node is not in the stack of open
elements (page 530), then this is a parse error (page 518); remove the element
from the list, and abort these steps.
Otherwise, there is a formatting element and that element is in the stack (page
530) and is in scope (page 531). If the element is not the current node (page
530), this is a parse error (page 518). In any case, proceed with the algorithm as
written in the following steps.
2. Let the furthest block be the topmost node in the stack of open elements (page
530) that is lower in the stack than the formatting element, and is not an
element in the phrasing (page 531) or formatting (page 531) categories. There
might not be one.
3. If there is no furthest block, then the UA must skip the subsequent steps and
instead just pop all the nodes from the bottom of the stack of open elements
(page 530), from the current node (page 530) up to and including the formatting
element, and remove the formatting element from the list of active formatting
4. Let the common ancestor be the element immediately above the formatting
element in the stack of open elements (page 530).
5. If the furthest block has a parent node, then remove the furthest block from its
parent node.
6. Let a bookmark note the position of the formatting element in the list of active
formatting elements (page 532) relative to the elements on either side of it in
the list.
7. Let node and last node be the furthest block. Follow these steps:
1. Let node be the element immediately above node in the stack of open
571
2. If node is not in the list of active formatting elements (page 532), then
remove node from the stack of open elements (page 530) and then go
back to step 1.
3. Otherwise, if node is the formatting element, then go to the next step in

the overall algorithm.
4. Otherwise, if last node is the furthest block, then move the

aforementioned bookmark to be immediately after the node in the list of
active formatting elements (page 532).
5. If node has any children, perform a shallow clone of node, replace the
entry for node in the list of active formatting elements (page 532) with
an entry for the clone, replace the entry for node in the stack of open
elements (page 530) with an entry for the clone, and let node be the
clone.
6. Insert last node into node, first removing it from its previous parent
node if any.
7. Let last node be node.
8. Return to step 1 of this inner set of steps.
8. If the common ancestor node is a table, tbody, tfoot, thead, or tr element,

then, foster parent (page 555) whatever last node ended up being in the
previous step.
Otherwise, append whatever last node ended up being in the previous step to
the common ancestor node, first removing it from its previous parent node if
any.
9. Perform a shallow clone of the formatting element.
10. Take all of the child nodes of the furthest block and append them to the clone
created in the last step.
11. Append that clone to the furthest block.
12. Remove the formatting element from the list of active formatting elements
(page 532), and insert the clone into the list of active formatting elements (page
532) at the position of the aforementioned bookmark.
13. Remove the formatting element from the stack of open elements (page 530),
and insert the clone into the stack of open elements (page 530) immediately
below the position of the furthest block in that stack.
14. Jump back to step 1 in this series of steps.
Note: The way these steps are defined, only elements in the formatting
(page 531) category ever get cloned by this algorithm.
572
Note: Because of the way this algorithm causes elements to change
parents, it has been dubbed the "adoption agency algorithm" (in
contrast with other possibly algorithms for dealing with misnested
content, which included the "incest algorithm", the "secret affair
algorithm", and the "Heisenberg algorithm").
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "button"

If the stack of open elements (page 530) has a button element in scope (page 531),
then this is a parse error (page 518); act as if an end tag with the tag name "button"
had been seen, then reprocess the token.
Otherwise:
If the form element pointer (page 533) is not null, then associate the button element
with the form element pointed to by the form element pointer (page 533).
Insert a marker at the end of the list of active formatting elements (page 532).
↪ A start tag token whose tag name is one of: "applet", "marquee", "object"
↪ An end tag token whose tag name is one of: "applet", "button", "marquee",
"object"
ignore the token.
4. Clear the list of active formatting elements up to the last marker (page 533).
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "xmp"

573
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "table"

Switch the insertion mode to "in table (page 578)".
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "area", "basefont", "bgsound", "br",
"embed", "img", "spacer", "wbr"
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "param", "source"

↪ A start tag whose tag name is "hr"

↪ A start tag whose tag name is "image"

Parse error (page 518). Change the token's tag name to "img" and reprocess it. (Don't
ask.)
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "input"

If the form element pointer (page 533) is not null, then associate the newly created
input element with the form element pointed to by the form element pointer (page
533).
574
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "isindex"
If the form element pointer (page 533) is not null, then ignore the token.
Otherwise:
Act as if a start tag token with the tag name "form" had been seen.
If the token has an attribute called "action", set the action attribute on the resulting
form element to the value of the "action" attribute of the token.
Act as if a start tag token with the tag name "hr" had been seen.
Act as if a start tag token with the tag name "p" had been seen.
Act as if a start tag token with the tag name "label" had been seen.
Act as if a stream of character tokens had been seen (see below for what they should
say).
Act as if a start tag token with the tag name "input" had been seen, with all the
attributes from the "isindex" token except "name", "action", and "prompt". Set the name
attribute of the resulting input element to the value "isindex".
Act as if a stream of character tokens had been seen (see below for what they should
say).
Act as if an end tag token with the tag name "label" had been seen.
Act as if an end tag token with the tag name "p" had been seen.
Act as if a start tag token with the tag name "hr" had been seen.
Act as if an end tag token with the tag name "form" had been seen.
If the token has an attribute with the name "prompt", then the first stream of characters
must be the same string as given in that attribute, and the second stream of characters
must be empty. Otherwise, the two streams of character tokens together should,
together with the input element, express the equivalent of "This is a searchable index.
Insert your search keywords here: (input field)" in the user's preferred language.
Then need to specify that if the form submission causes just a single form control,
whose name is "isindex", to be submitted, then we submit just the value part, not the
"isindex=" part.
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "textarea"

Append the new element to the current node (page 530).
575
If the form element pointer (page 533) is not null, then associate the newly created
textarea element with the form element pointed to by the form element pointer (page
533).
Switch the tokeniser's content model flag (page 534) to the RCDATA state.
If the next token is a U+000A LINE FEED (LF) character token, then ignore that token
and move on to the next one. (Newlines at the start of textarea elements are ignored
as an authoring convenience.)
Then, collect all the character tokens that the tokeniser returns until it returns a token
If this process resulted in a collection of character tokens, append a single Text node,
whose contents is the concatenation of all those tokens' characters, to the new element
node.
The tokeniser's content model flag (page 534) will have switched back to the PCDATA
state.
If the next token is an end tag token with the tag name "textarea", ignore it. Otherwise,
this is a parse error (page 518).
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "iframe", "noembed"
enabled
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "select"

If the form element pointer (page 533) is not null, then associate the select element
If the insertion mode is one of in table (page 578)", "in caption (page 580)", "in column
group (page 581)", "in table body (page 582)", "in row (page 583)", or "in cell (page
584)", then switch the insertion mode to "in select in table (page 587)". Otherwise,
switch the insertion mode to "in select (page 585)".
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "rp", "rt"

If the stack of open elements (page 530) has a ruby element in scope (page 531), then
generate implied end tags (page 555). If the current node (page 530) is not then a ruby
element, this is a parse error (page 518); pop all the nodes from the current node (page
530) up to the node immediately before the bottommost ruby element on the stack of
open elements (page 530).
576
↪ An end tag whose tag name is "br"
Parse error (page 518). Act as if a start tag token with the tag name "br" had been seen.
Ignore the end tag token.
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "math"

Adjust foreign attributes (page 554) for the token. (This fixes the use of namespaced
attributes, in particular XLink.)
Insert a foreign element (page 554) for the token, in the MathML namespace (page
593).
If the token has its self-closing flag set, pop the current node (page 530) off the stack of
open elements (page 530) and acknowledge the token's self-closing flag (page 534).
Otherwise, let the secondary insertion mode (page 529) be the current insertion mode,
and then switch the insertion mode to "in foreign content (page 587)".
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "caption", "col", "colgroup", "frame",
"frameset", "head", "tbody", "td", "tfoot", "th", "thead", "tr"
↪ Any other start tag

Note: This element will be a phrasing (page 531) element.

Run the following steps:
stack).
2. If node has the same tag name as the end tag token, then:
2. If the tag name of the end tag token does not match the tag name of
the current node (page 530), this is a parse error (page 518).
3. Pop all the nodes from the current node (page 530) up to node,
including node, then stop these steps.
3. Otherwise, if node is in neither the formatting (page 531) category nor the
phrasing (page 531) category, then this is a parse error (page 518); ignore the
token, and abort these steps.
577
4. Set node to the previous entry in the stack of open elements (page 530).
9.2.5.11. The "in table" insertion mode
When the insertion mode is "in table (page 578)", tokens must be handled as follows:

If the current table (page 531) is tainted (page 555), then act as described in the
"anything else" entry below.
Otherwise, insert the character (page 553) into the current node (page 530).
↪ A comment token
↪ A DOCTYPE token
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "caption"

Clear the stack back to a table context (page 580). (See below.)
Insert an HTML element (page 554) for the token, then switch the insertion mode to "in
caption (page 580)".
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "colgroup"

column group (page 581)".
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "col"

Act as if a start tag token with the tag name "colgroup" had been seen, then reprocess
the current token.
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "tbody", "tfoot", "thead"
table body (page 582)".
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "td", "th", "tr"
Act as if a start tag token with the tag name "tbody" had been seen, then reprocess the
current token.
578
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "table"
Parse error (page 518). Act as if an end tag token with the tag name "table" had been
seen, then, if that token wasn't ignored, reprocess the current token.
case (page 596).
↪ An end tag whose tag name is "table"

If the stack of open elements (page 530) does not have an element in table scope (page
532) with the same tag name as the token, this is a parse error (page 518). Ignore the
Otherwise:
Pop elements from this stack until a table element has been popped from the stack.
Reset the insertion mode appropriately (page 529).
↪ An end tag whose tag name is one of: "body", "caption", "col", "colgroup", "html",
"tbody", "td", "tfoot", "th", "thead", "tr"
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "style", "script"

If the current table (page 531) is tainted (page 555) then act as described in the
"anything else" entry below.
Otherwise, process the token using the rules for (page 529) the "in head (page 560)"
insertion mode.
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "input"

If the token does not have an attribute with the name "type", or if it does, but that
attribute's value is not a case-insensitive match for the string "hidden", or, if the current
table (page 531) is tainted (page 555), then: act as described in the "anything else"
entry below.
Otherwise:
If the form element pointer (page 533) is not null, then associate the input element
Pop that input element off the stack of open elements (page 530).
If the current node (page 530) is not the root html element, then this is a parse error.
(page 518).
579
Note: It can only be the current node (page 530) in the fragment case
(page 596).
Stop parsing. (page 592)
↪ Anything else
Parse error (page 518). Process the token using the rules for (page 529) the "in body
(page 565)" insertion mode, except that if the current node (page 530) is a table,
tbody, tfoot, thead, or tr element, then, whenever a node would be inserted into the
current node (page 530), it must instead be foster parented (page 555).
When the steps above require the UA to clear the stack back to a table context, it means
that the UA must, while the current node (page 530) is not a table element or an html element,
pop elements from the stack of open elements (page 530).
Note: The current node (page 530) being an html element after this process is
a fragment case (page 596).
9.2.5.12. The "in caption" insertion mode
When the insertion mode is "in caption (page 580)", tokens must be handled as follows:
↪ An end tag whose tag name is "caption"

Otherwise:
Generate implied end tags (page 555).
Now, if the current node (page 530) is not a caption element, then this is a parse error
(page 518).
Pop elements from this stack until a caption element has been popped from the stack.
Clear the list of active formatting elements up to the last marker (page 533).
Switch the insertion mode to "in table (page 578)".
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "caption", "col", "colgroup", "tbody", "td",
"tfoot", "th", "thead", "tr"

Parse error (page 518). Act as if an end tag with the tag name "caption" had been seen,
then, if that token wasn't ignored, reprocess the current token.
580
case (page 596).
↪ An end tag whose tag name is one of: "body", "col", "colgroup", "html", "tbody",
"td", "tfoot", "th", "thead", "tr"
↪ Anything else
mode.
9.2.5.13. The "in column group" insertion mode
When the insertion mode is "in column group (page 581)", tokens must be handled as follows:

↪ A comment token
↪ A DOCTYPE token

mode.
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "col"

↪ An end tag whose tag name is "colgroup"

If the current node (page 530) is the root html element, then this is a parse error (page
518); ignore the token. (fragment case (page 596))
Otherwise, pop the current node (page 530) (which will be a colgroup element) from
the stack of open elements (page 530). Switch the insertion mode to "in table (page
578)".
↪ An end tag whose tag name is "col"

581
If the current node (page 530) is the root html element, then stop parsing (page 592).
(fragment case (page 596))
Otherwise, act as described in the "anything else" entry below.
↪ Anything else
Act as if an end tag with the tag name "colgroup" had been seen, and then, if that token
wasn't ignored, reprocess the current token.
case (page 596).
9.2.5.14. The "in table body" insertion mode
When the insertion mode is "in table body (page 582)", tokens must be handled as follows:
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "tr"

Clear the stack back to a table body context (page 583). (See below.)
row (page 583)".
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "th", "td"

Parse error (page 518). Act as if a start tag with the tag name "tr" had been seen, then
reprocess the current token.
↪ An end tag whose tag name is one of: "tbody", "tfoot", "thead"
token.
Otherwise:
Pop the current node (page 530) from the stack of open elements (page 530). Switch
the insertion mode to "in table (page 578)".
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "caption", "col", "colgroup", "tbody",
"tfoot", "thead"

If the stack of open elements (page 530) does not have a tbody, thead, or tfoot
element in table scope (page 532), this is a parse error (page 518). Ignore the token.
(fragment case (page 596))
Otherwise:
582
Act as if an end tag with the same tag name as the current node (page 530) ("tbody",
"tfoot", or "thead") had been seen, then reprocess the current token.
"td", "th", "tr"
↪ Anything else
Process the token using the rules for (page 529) the "in table (page 578)" insertion
mode.
When the steps above require the UA to clear the stack back to a table body context, it
means that the UA must, while the current node (page 530) is not a tbody, tfoot, thead, or
html element, pop elements from the stack of open elements (page 530).
9.2.5.15. The "in row" insertion mode
When the insertion mode is "in row (page 583)", tokens must be handled as follows:
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "th", "td"

Clear the stack back to a table row context (page 584). (See below.)
cell (page 584)".
↪ An end tag whose tag name is "tr"

Otherwise:
Clear the stack back to a table row context (page 584). (See below.)
Pop the current node (page 530) (which will be a tr element) from the stack of open
elements (page 530). Switch the insertion mode to "in table body (page 582)".
583
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "caption", "col", "colgroup", "tbody",
"tfoot", "thead", "tr"

Act as if an end tag with the tag name "tr" had been seen, then, if that token wasn't
ignored, reprocess the current token.
case (page 596).
↪ An end tag whose tag name is one of: "tbody", "tfoot", "thead"
token.
Otherwise, act as if an end tag with the tag name "tr" had been seen, then reprocess
the current token.
"td", "th"
↪ Anything else
Process the token using the rules for (page 529) the "in table (page 578)" insertion
mode.
When the steps above require the UA to clear the stack back to a table row context, it
means that the UA must, while the current node (page 530) is not a tr element or an html
element, pop elements from the stack of open elements (page 530).
9.2.5.16. The "in cell" insertion mode
When the insertion mode is "in cell (page 584)", tokens must be handled as follows:
↪ An end tag whose tag name is one of: "td", "th"

532) with the same tag name as that of the token, then this is a parse error (page 518)
and the token must be ignored.
Otherwise:
Generate implied end tags (page 555).
Now, if the current node (page 530) is not an element with the same tag name as the
token, then this is a parse error (page 518).
584
Pop elements from this stack until an element with the same tag name as the token has
been popped from the stack.
Clear the list of active formatting elements up to the last marker (page 533).
Switch the insertion mode to "in row (page 583)". (The current node (page 530) will be a
tr element at this point.)
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "caption", "col", "colgroup", "tbody", "td",
"tfoot", "th", "thead", "tr"
If the stack of open elements (page 530) does not have a td or th element in table
scope (page 532), then this is a parse error (page 518); ignore the token. (fragment
case (page 596))
Otherwise, close the cell (page 585) (see below) and reprocess the current token.
↪ An end tag whose tag name is one of: "body", "caption", "col", "colgroup", "html"
↪ An end tag whose tag name is one of: "table", "tbody", "tfoot", "thead", "tr"
532) with the same tag name as that of the token (which can only happen for "tbody",
"tfoot" and "thead", or, in the fragment case (page 596)), then this is a parse error
(page 518) and the token must be ignored.
Otherwise, close the cell (page 585) (see below) and reprocess the current token.
↪ Anything else
mode.
Where the steps above say to close the cell, they mean to run the following algorithm:
1. If the stack of open elements (page 530) has a td element in table scope (page 532),
then act as if an end tag token with the tag name "td" had been seen.
2. Otherwise, the stack of open elements (page 530) will have a th element in table scope
(page 532); act as if an end tag token with the tag name "th" had been seen.
Note: The stack of open elements (page 530) cannot have both a td and a th
element in table scope (page 532) at the same time, nor can it have neither
when the insertion mode is "in cell (page 584)".
9.2.5.17. The "in select" insertion mode
When the insertion mode is "in select (page 585)", tokens must be handled as follows:
585
↪ A comment token
↪ A DOCTYPE token

mode.
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "option"

If the current node (page 530) is an option element, act as if an end tag with the tag
name "option" had been seen.
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "optgroup"

If the current node (page 530) is an option element, act as if an end tag with the tag
name "option" had been seen.
If the current node (page 530) is an optgroup element, act as if an end tag with the tag
name "optgroup" had been seen.
↪ An end tag whose tag name is "optgroup"

First, if the current node (page 530) is an option element, and the node immediately
before it in the stack of open elements (page 530) is an optgroup element, then act as
if an end tag with the tag name "option" had been seen.
If the current node (page 530) is an optgroup element, then pop that node from the
stack of open elements (page 530). Otherwise, this is a parse error (page 518); ignore
the token.
↪ An end tag whose tag name is "option"

If the current node (page 530) is an option element, then pop that node from the stack
of open elements (page 530). Otherwise, this is a parse error (page 518); ignore the
token.
↪ An end tag whose tag name is "select"

Otherwise:
Pop elements from the stack of open elements (page 530) until a select element has
been popped from the stack.
586
Reset the insertion mode appropriately (page 529).
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "select"

Parse error (page 518). Act as if the token had been an end tag with the tag name
"select" instead.
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "input", "textarea"

Parse error (page 518). Act as if an end tag with the tag name "select" had been seen,
and reprocess the token.
(page 518).
(page 596).
↪ Anything else
9.2.5.18. The "in select in table" insertion mode
When the insertion mode is "in select in table (page 587)", tokens must be handled as follows:
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "caption", "table", "tbody", "tfoot", "thead",
"tr", "td", "th"
Parse error (page 518). Act as if an end tag with the tag name "select" had been seen,
and reprocess the token.
↪ An end tag whose tag name is one of: "caption", "table", "tbody", "tfoot", "thead",
"tr", "td", "th"
If the stack of open elements (page 530) has an element in table scope (page 532) with
the same tag name as that of the token, then act as if an end tag with the tag name
"select" had been seen, and reprocess the token. Otherwise, ignore the token.
↪ Anything else
Process the token using the rules for (page 529) the "in select (page 585)" insertion
mode.
9.2.5.19. The "in foreign content" insertion mode
When the insertion mode is "in foreign content (page 587)", tokens must be handled as follows:
587
↪ A comment token
↪ A DOCTYPE token
↪ A start tag whose tag name is neither "mglyph" nor "malignmark", if the current
node (page 530) is an mi element in the MathML namespace (page 593).
node (page 530) is an mo element in the MathML namespace (page 593).
node (page 530) is an mn element in the MathML namespace (page 593).
node (page 530) is an ms element in the MathML namespace (page 593).
node (page 530) is an mtext element in the MathML namespace (page 593).
↪ A start tag, if the current node (page 530) is an element in the HTML namespace
(page 593).
↪ An end tag
Process the token using the rules for (page 529) the secondary insertion mode (page
529).
If, after doing so, the insertion mode is still "in foreign content (page 587)", but there is
no element in scope that has a namespace other than the HTML namespace (page 593),
switch the insertion mode to the secondary insertion mode (page 529).
↪ A start tag whose tag name is one of: "b", "big", "blockquote", "body", "br",
"center", "code", "dd", "div", "dl", "dt", "em", "embed", "font", "h1", "h2", "h3",
"h4", "h5", "h6", "head", "hr", "i", "img", "li", "listing", "menu", "meta", "nobr",
"ol", "p", "pre", "ruby", "s", "small", "span", "strong", "strike", "sub", "sup",
"table", "tt", "u", "ul", "var"
Pop elements from the stack of open elements (page 530) until the current node (page
530) is in the HTML namespace (page 593).
Switch the insertion mode to the secondary insertion mode (page 529), and reprocess
the token.
588
↪ Any other start tag
Adjust foreign attributes (page 554) for the token. (This fixes the use of namespaced
attributes, in particular XLink in SVG.)
Insert a foreign element (page 554) for the token, in the same namespace as the
current node (page 530).
If the token has its self-closing flag set, pop the current node (page 530) off the stack of
open elements (page 530) and acknowledge the token's self-closing flag (page 534).
9.2.5.20. The "after body" insertion mode
When the insertion mode is "after body (page 589)", tokens must be handled as follows:

mode.
↪ A comment token
Append a Comment node to the first element in the stack of open elements (page 530)
(the html element), with the data attribute set to the data given in the comment token.
↪ A DOCTYPE token

mode.

If the parser was originally created as part of the HTML fragment parsing algorithm
(page 596), this is a parse error (page 518); ignore the token. (fragment case (page
596))
Otherwise, switch the insertion mode to "after after body (page 591)".
↪ Anything else
Parse error (page 518). Switch the insertion mode to "in body (page 565)" and reprocess
the token.
9.2.5.21. The "in frameset" insertion mode
When the insertion mode is "in frameset (page 589)", tokens must be handled as follows:
589
↪ A comment token
↪ A DOCTYPE token

mode.
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "frameset"

↪ An end tag whose tag name is "frameset"

If the current node (page 530) is the root html element, then this is a parse error (page
518); ignore the token. (fragment case (page 596))
Otherwise, pop the current node (page 530) from the stack of open elements (page
530).
If the parser was not originally created as part of the HTML fragment parsing algorithm
(page 596) (fragment case (page 596)), and the current node (page 530) is no longer a
frameset element, then switch the insertion mode to "after frameset (page 591)".
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "frame"

↪ A start tag whose tag name is "noframes"

mode.
(page 518).
(page 596).
590
↪ Anything else
9.2.5.22. The "after frameset" insertion mode
When the insertion mode is "after frameset (page 591)", tokens must be handled as follows:

↪ A comment token
↪ A DOCTYPE token

mode.

Switch the insertion mode to "after after frameset (page 592)".
↪ A start tag whose tag name is "noframes"

mode.
↪ Anything else
This doesn't handle UAs that don't support frames, or that do support frames but want to
show the NOFRAMES content. Supporting the former is easy; supporting the latter is harder.
9.2.5.23. The "after after body" insertion mode
When the insertion mode is "after after body (page 591)", tokens must be handled as follows:
↪ A comment token
↪ A DOCTYPE token
591

mode.
↪ Anything else
Parse error (page 518). Switch the insertion mode to "in body (page 565)" and reprocess
the token.
9.2.5.24. The "after after frameset" insertion mode
When the insertion mode is "after after frameset (page 592)", tokens must be handled as
follows:
↪ A comment token
↪ A DOCTYPE token


mode.
↪ Anything else
Parse error (page 518). Switch the insertion mode to "in frameset (page 589)" and
reprocess the token.
9.2.6 The end
Once the user agent stops parsing the document, the user agent must follow the steps in this
section.
First, the current document readiness (page 75) must be set to "interactive".
Then, the rules for when a script completes loading (page 301) start applying (script execution is
no longer managed by the parser).
592
If any of the scripts in the list of scripts that will execute as soon as possible (page 302) have
completed loading, or if the list of scripts that will execute asynchronously (page 302) is not
empty and the first script in that list has completed loading, then the user agent must act as if
those scripts just completed loading, following the rules given for that in the script element
definition.
Then, if the list of scripts that will execute when the document has finished parsing (page 301) is
not empty, and the first item in this list has already completed loading, then the user agent must
act as if that script just finished loading.
By this point, there will be no scripts that have loaded but have not yet been executed.
The user agent must then fire a simple event (page 375) called DOMContentLoaded at the
Document.
Once everything that delays the load event has completed, the user agent must set the
current document readiness (page 75) to "complete", and then fire a load event (page 375) at
delaying the load event for things like image loads allows for intranet port scans (even
without javascript!). Should we really encode that into the spec?
9.3 Namespaces
The HTML namespace is: http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml
The MathML namespace is: http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML
The SVG namespace is: http://www.w3.org/2000/svg
The XLink namespace is: http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink
The XML namespace is: http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace
The XMLNS namespace is: http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/
9.4 Serializing HTML fragments
The following steps form the HTML fragment serialization algorithm. The algorithm takes as
input a DOM Element or Document, referred to as the node, and either returns a string or raises
an exception.
Note: This algorithm serializes the children of the node being serialized, not
the node itself.
1. Let s be a string, and initialise it to the empty string.
593
2. For each child node of the node, in tree order (page 28), run the following steps:
1. Let current node be the child node being processed.
2. Append the appropriate string from the following list to s:
↪ If current node is an Element

Append a U+003C LESS-THAN SIGN (<) character, followed by the
element's tag name. (For nodes created by the HTML parser (page 518),
Document.createElement(), or Document.renameNode(), the tag name
will be lowercase.)
For each attribute that the element has, append a U+0020 SPACE
character, the attribute's name (which, for attributes set by the HTML
parser (page 518) or by Element.setAttributeNode() or
Element.setAttribute(), will be lowercase), a U+003D EQUALS SIGN
(=) character, a U+0022 QUOTATION MARK (") character, the attribute's
value, escaped as described below (page 595) in attribute mode, and a
second U+0022 QUOTATION MARK (") character.
While the exact order of attributes is UA-defined, and may depend on

factors such as the order that the attributes were given in the original
markup, the sort order must be stable, such that consecutive
invocations of this algorithm serialize an element's attributes in the
same order.
Append a U+003E GREATER-THAN SIGN (>) character.
If current node is an area, base, basefont, bgsound, br, col, embed,

frame, hr, img, input, link, meta, param, spacer, or wbr element, then
continue on to the next child node at this point.
If current node is a pre textarea, or listing element, append a

U+000A LINE FEED (LF) character.
Append the value of running the HTML fragment serialization algorithm

(page 593) on the current node element (thus recursing into this
algorithm for that element), followed by a U+003C LESS-THAN SIGN (<)
character, a U+002F SOLIDUS (/) character, the element's tag name
again, and finally a U+003E GREATER-THAN SIGN (>) character.
↪ If current node is a Text or CDATASection node

If one of the ancestors of current node is a style, script, xmp, iframe,
noembed, noframes, noscript, or plaintext element, then append the
value of current node's data DOM attribute literally.
Otherwise, append the value of current node's data DOM attribute,

escaped as described below (page 595).
594
↪ If current node is a Comment
Append the literal string  (U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS,
U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS, U+003E GREATER-THAN SIGN).
↪ If current node is a ProcessingInstruction

Append the literal string <? (U+003C LESS-THAN SIGN, U+003F
QUESTION MARK), followed by the value of current node's target DOM
attribute, followed by a single U+0020 SPACE character, followed by the
value of current node's data DOM attribute, followed by a single
U+003E GREATER-THAN SIGN character ('>').
↪ If current node is a DocumentType

Append the literal string <!DOCTYPE (U+003C LESS-THAN SIGN, U+0021
EXCLAMATION MARK, U+0044 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D, U+004F LATIN
CAPITAL LETTER O, U+0043 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C, U+0054 LATIN
CAPITAL LETTER T, U+0059 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y, U+0050 LATIN
CAPITAL LETTER P, U+0045 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E), followed by a
space (U+0020 SPACE), followed by the value of current node's name
DOM attribute, followed by the literal string > (U+003E GREATER-THAN
SIGN).
Other node types (e.g. Attr) cannot occur as children of elements. If, despite
this, they somehow do occur, this algorithm must raise an INVALID_STATE_ERR
exception.
3. The result of the algorithm is the string s.
Escaping a string (for the purposes of the algorithm above) consists of replacing any
occurrences of the "&" character by the string "&", any occurrences of the "<" character by
the string "<", any occurrences of the ">" character by the string ">", any occurrences of
the U+00A0 NO-BREAK SPACE character by the string " ", and, if the algorithm was
invoked in the attribute mode, any occurrences of the """ character by the string """.
Note: Entity reference nodes are assumed to be expanded (page 24) by the
user agent, and are therefore not covered in the algorithm above.
Note: It is possible that the output of this algorithm, if parsed with an HTML
parser (page 518), will not return the original tree structure. For instance, if a
textarea element to which a Comment node has been appended is serialized and
the output is then reparsed, the comment will end up being displayed in the
text field. Similarly, if, as a result of DOM manipulation, an element contains a
comment that contains the literal string "-->", then when the result of
serializing the element is parsed, the comment will be truncated at that point
and the rest of the comment will be interpreted as markup. More examples
595
would be making a script element contain a text node with the text string
"</script>", or having a p element that contains a ul element (as the ul
element's start tag would imply the end tag for the p).
9.5 Parsing HTML fragments
The following steps form the HTML fragment parsing algorithm. The algorithm takes as input
a DOM Element, referred to as the context element, which gives the context for the parser, as
well as input, a string to parse, and returns a list of zero or more nodes.
Note: Parts marked fragment case in algorithms in the parser section are
parts that only occur if the parser was created for the purposes of this
algorithm. The algorithms have been annotated with such markings for
informational purposes only; such markings have no normative weight. If it is
possible for a condition described as a fragment case (page 596) to occur even
when the parser wasn't created for the purposes of handling this algorithm,
then that is an error in the specification.
1. Create a new Document node, and mark it as being an HTML document (page 71).
2. Create a new HTML parser (page 518), and associate it with the just created Document
node.
3. Set the HTML parser (page 518)'s tokenisation (page 534) stage's content model flag
(page 534) according to the context element, as follows:
↪ If it is a title or textarea element

Set the content model flag (page 534) to RCDATA.
↪ If it is a style, script, xmp, iframe, noembed, or noframes element

Set the content model flag (page 534) to CDATA.
↪ If it is a noscript element
If the scripting flag (page 534) is enabled, set the content model flag (page 534)
to CDATA. Otherwise, set the content model flag (page 534) to PCDATA.
↪ If it is a plaintext element
Set the content model flag (page 534) to PLAINTEXT.
↪ Otherwise
Set the content model flag (page 534) to PCDATA.
4. Let root be a new html element with no attributes.
5. Append the element root to the Document node created above.
6. Set up the parser's stack of open elements (page 530) so that it contains just the single
element root.
596
7. Reset the parser's insertion mode appropriately (page 529).
Note: The parser will reference the context element as part of that
algorithm.
8. Set the parser's form element pointer (page 533) to the nearest node to the context
element that is a form element (going straight up the ancestor chain, and including the
element itself, if it is a form element), or, if there is no such form element, to null.
9. Place into the input stream (page 521) for the HTML parser (page 518) just created the
input.
10. Start the parser and let it run until it has consumed all the characters just inserted into
the input stream.
11. Return all the child nodes of root, preserving the document order.
9.6 Named character references
This table lists the character reference names that are supported by HTML, and the code points
to which they refer. It is referenced by the previous sections.
Name Character Name Character Name Character
AElig; U+000C6 Breve; U+002D8 Cscr; U+1D49E

AElig U+000C6 Bscr; U+0212C Cup; U+022D3
AMP; U+00026 Bumpeq; U+0224E CupCap; U+0224D
AMP U+00026 CHcy; U+00427 DD; U+02145
Aacute; U+000C1 COPY; U+000A9 DDotrahd; U+02911
Aacute U+000C1 COPY U+000A9 DJcy; U+00402
Abreve; U+00102 Cacute; U+00106 DScy; U+00405
Acirc; U+000C2 Cap; U+022D2 DZcy; U+0040F
Acirc U+000C2 CapitalDifferentialD; U+02145 Dagger; U+02021
Acy; U+00410 Cayleys; U+0212D Darr; U+021A1
Afr; U+1D504 Ccaron; U+0010C Dashv; U+02AE4
Agrave; U+000C0 Ccedil; U+000C7 Dcaron; U+0010E
Agrave U+000C0 Ccedil U+000C7 Dcy; U+00414
Alpha; U+00391 Ccirc; U+00108 Del; U+02207
Amacr; U+00100 Cconint; U+02230 Delta; U+00394
And; U+02A53 Cdot; U+0010A Dfr; U+1D507
Aogon; U+00104 Cedilla; U+000B8 DiacriticalAcute; U+000B4
Aopf; U+1D538 CenterDot; U+000B7 DiacriticalDot; U+002D9
ApplyFunction; U+02061 Cfr; U+0212D DiacriticalDoubleAcute; U+002DD
Aring; U+000C5 Chi; U+003A7 DiacriticalGrave; U+00060
Aring U+000C5 CircleDot; U+02299 DiacriticalTilde; U+002DC
Ascr; U+1D49C CircleMinus; U+02296 Diamond; U+022C4
Assign; U+02254 CirclePlus; U+02295 DifferentialD; U+02146
Atilde; U+000C3 CircleTimes; U+02297 Dopf; U+1D53B
Atilde U+000C3 ClockwiseContourIntegral; U+02232 Dot; U+000A8
Auml; U+000C4 CloseCurlyDoubleQuote; U+0201D DotDot; U+020DC
Auml U+000C4 CloseCurlyQuote; U+02019 DotEqual; U+02250
Backslash; U+02216 Colon; U+02237 DoubleContourIntegral; U+0222F
Barv; U+02AE7 Colone; U+02A74 DoubleDot; U+000A8
Barwed; U+02306 Congruent; U+02261 DoubleDownArrow; U+021D3
Bcy; U+00411 Conint; U+0222F DoubleLeftArrow; U+021D0
Because; U+02235 ContourIntegral; U+0222E DoubleLeftRightArrow; U+021D4
Bernoullis; U+0212C Copf; U+02102 DoubleLeftTee; U+02AE4
Beta; U+00392 Coproduct; U+02210 DoubleLongLeftArrow; U+027F8
Bfr; U+1D505 CounterClockwiseContourIntegral; U+02233 DoubleLongLeftRightArrow; U+027FA
Bopf; U+1D539 Cross; U+02A2F DoubleLongRightArrow; U+027F9
597
DoubleRightArrow; U+021D2 Gfr; U+1D50A LT; U+0003C
DoubleRightTee; U+022A8 Gg; U+022D9 LT U+0003C
DoubleUpArrow; U+021D1 Gopf; U+1D53E Lacute; U+00139
DoubleUpDownArrow; U+021D5 GreaterEqual; U+02265 Lambda; U+0039B
DoubleVerticalBar; U+02225 GreaterEqualLess; U+022DB Lang; U+027EA
DownArrow; U+02193 GreaterFullEqual; U+02267 Laplacetrf; U+02112
DownArrowBar; U+02913 GreaterGreater; U+02AA2 Larr; U+0219E
DownArrowUpArrow; U+021F5 GreaterLess; U+02277 Lcaron; U+0013D
DownBreve; U+00311 GreaterSlantEqual; U+02A7E Lcedil; U+0013B
DownLeftRightVector; U+02950 GreaterTilde; U+02273 Lcy; U+0041B
DownLeftTeeVector; U+0295E Gscr; U+1D4A2 LeftAngleBracket; U+027E8
DownLeftVector; U+021BD Gt; U+0226B LeftArrow; U+02190
DownLeftVectorBar; U+02956 HARDcy; U+0042A LeftArrowBar; U+021E4
DownRightTeeVector; U+0295F Hacek; U+002C7 LeftArrowRightArrow; U+021C6
DownRightVector; U+021C1 Hat; U+0005E LeftCeiling; U+02308
DownRightVectorBar; U+02957 Hcirc; U+00124 LeftDoubleBracket; U+027E6
DownTee; U+022A4 Hfr; U+0210C LeftDownTeeVector; U+02961
DownTeeArrow; U+021A7 HilbertSpace; U+0210B LeftDownVector; U+021C3
Downarrow; U+021D3 Hopf; U+0210D LeftDownVectorBar; U+02959
Dscr; U+1D49F HorizontalLine; U+02500 LeftFloor; U+0230A
Dstrok; U+00110 Hscr; U+0210B LeftRightArrow; U+02194
ENG; U+0014A Hstrok; U+00126 LeftRightVector; U+0294E
ETH; U+000D0 HumpDownHump; U+0224E LeftTee; U+022A3
ETH U+000D0 HumpEqual; U+0224F LeftTeeArrow; U+021A4
Eacute; U+000C9 IEcy; U+00415 LeftTeeVector; U+0295A
Eacute U+000C9 IJlig; U+00132 LeftTriangle; U+022B2
Ecaron; U+0011A IOcy; U+00401 LeftTriangleBar; U+029CF
Ecirc; U+000CA Iacute; U+000CD LeftTriangleEqual; U+022B4
Ecirc U+000CA Iacute U+000CD LeftUpDownVector; U+02951
Ecy; U+0042D Icirc; U+000CE LeftUpTeeVector; U+02960
Edot; U+00116 Icirc U+000CE LeftUpVector; U+021BF
Efr; U+1D508 Icy; U+00418 LeftUpVectorBar; U+02958
Egrave; U+000C8 Idot; U+00130 LeftVector; U+021BC
Egrave U+000C8 Ifr; U+02111 LeftVectorBar; U+02952
Element; U+02208 Igrave; U+000CC Leftarrow; U+021D0
Emacr; U+00112 Igrave U+000CC Leftrightarrow; U+021D4
EmptySmallSquare; U+025FB Im; U+02111 LessEqualGreater; U+022DA
EmptyVerySmallSquare; U+025AB Imacr; U+0012A LessFullEqual; U+02266
Eogon; U+00118 ImaginaryI; U+02148 LessGreater; U+02276
Eopf; U+1D53C Implies; U+021D2 LessLess; U+02AA1
Epsilon; U+00395 Int; U+0222C LessSlantEqual; U+02A7D
Equal; U+02A75 Integral; U+0222B LessTilde; U+02272
EqualTilde; U+02242 Intersection; U+022C2 Lfr; U+1D50F
Equilibrium; U+021CC InvisibleComma; U+02063 Ll; U+022D8
Escr; U+02130 InvisibleTimes; U+02062 Lleftarrow; U+021DA
Esim; U+02A73 Iogon; U+0012E Lmidot; U+0013F
Eta; U+00397 Iopf; U+1D540 LongLeftArrow; U+027F5
Euml; U+000CB Iota; U+00399 LongLeftRightArrow; U+027F7
Euml U+000CB Iscr; U+02110 LongRightArrow; U+027F6
Exists; U+02203 Itilde; U+00128 Longleftarrow; U+027F8
ExponentialE; U+02147 Iukcy; U+00406 Longleftrightarrow; U+027FA
Fcy; U+00424 Iuml; U+000CF Longrightarrow; U+027F9
Ffr; U+1D509 Iuml U+000CF Lopf; U+1D543
FilledSmallSquare; U+025FC Jcirc; U+00134 LowerLeftArrow; U+02199
FilledVerySmallSquare; U+025AA Jcy; U+00419 LowerRightArrow; U+02198
Fopf; U+1D53D Jfr; U+1D50D Lscr; U+02112
ForAll; U+02200 Jopf; U+1D541 Lsh; U+021B0
Fouriertrf; U+02131 Jscr; U+1D4A5 Lstrok; U+00141
Fscr; U+02131 Jsercy; U+00408 Lt; U+0226A
GJcy; U+00403 Jukcy; U+00404 Map; U+02905
GT; U+0003E KHcy; U+00425 Mcy; U+0041C
GT U+0003E KJcy; U+0040C MediumSpace; U+0205F
Gamma; U+00393 Kappa; U+0039A Mellintrf; U+02133
Gammad; U+003DC Kcedil; U+00136 Mfr; U+1D510
Gbreve; U+0011E Kcy; U+0041A MinusPlus; U+02213
Gcedil; U+00122 Kfr; U+1D50E Mopf; U+1D544
Gcirc; U+0011C Kopf; U+1D542 Mscr; U+02133
Gcy; U+00413 Kscr; U+1D4A6 Mu; U+0039C
Gdot; U+00120 LJcy; U+00409 NJcy; U+0040A
598
Nacute; U+00143 Oscr; U+1D4AA RightUpTeeVector; U+0295C
Ncaron; U+00147 Oslash; U+000D8 RightUpVector; U+021BE
Ncedil; U+00145 Oslash U+000D8 RightUpVectorBar; U+02954
Ncy; U+0041D Otilde; U+000D5 RightVector; U+021C0
NegativeMediumSpace; U+0200B Otilde U+000D5 RightVectorBar; U+02953
NegativeThickSpace; U+0200B Otimes; U+02A37 Rightarrow; U+021D2
NegativeThinSpace; U+0200B Ouml; U+000D6 Ropf; U+0211D
NegativeVeryThinSpace; U+0200B Ouml U+000D6 RoundImplies; U+02970
NestedGreaterGreater; U+0226B OverBar; U+000AF Rrightarrow; U+021DB
NestedLessLess; U+0226A OverBrace; U+023DE Rscr; U+0211B
NewLine; U+0000A OverBracket; U+023B4 Rsh; U+021B1
Nfr; U+1D511 OverParenthesis; U+023DC RuleDelayed; U+029F4
NoBreak; U+02060 PartialD; U+02202 SHCHcy; U+00429
NonBreakingSpace; U+000A0 Pcy; U+0041F SHcy; U+00428
Nopf; U+02115 Pfr; U+1D513 SOFTcy; U+0042C
Not; U+02AEC Phi; U+003A6 Sacute; U+0015A
NotCongruent; U+02262 Pi; U+003A0 Sc; U+02ABC
NotCupCap; U+0226D PlusMinus; U+000B1 Scaron; U+00160
NotDoubleVerticalBar; U+02226 Poincareplane; U+0210C Scedil; U+0015E
NotElement; U+02209 Popf; U+02119 Scirc; U+0015C
NotEqual; U+02260 Pr; U+02ABB Scy; U+00421
NotExists; U+02204 Precedes; U+0227A Sfr; U+1D516
NotGreater; U+0226F PrecedesEqual; U+02AAF ShortDownArrow; U+02193
NotGreaterEqual; U+02271 PrecedesSlantEqual; U+0227C ShortLeftArrow; U+02190
NotGreaterLess; U+02279 PrecedesTilde; U+0227E ShortRightArrow; U+02192
NotGreaterTilde; U+02275 Prime; U+02033 ShortUpArrow; U+02191
NotLeftTriangle; U+022EA Product; U+0220F Sigma; U+003A3
NotLeftTriangleEqual; U+022EC Proportion; U+02237 SmallCircle; U+02218
NotLess; U+0226E Proportional; U+0221D Sopf; U+1D54A
NotLessEqual; U+02270 Pscr; U+1D4AB Sqrt; U+0221A
NotLessGreater; U+02278 Psi; U+003A8 Square; U+025A1
NotLessTilde; U+02274 QUOT; U+00022 SquareIntersection; U+02293
NotPrecedes; U+02280 QUOT U+00022 SquareSubset; U+0228F
NotPrecedesSlantEqual; U+022E0 Qfr; U+1D514 SquareSubsetEqual; U+02291
NotReverseElement; U+0220C Qopf; U+0211A SquareSuperset; U+02290
NotRightTriangle; U+022EB Qscr; U+1D4AC SquareSupersetEqual; U+02292
NotRightTriangleEqual; U+022ED RBarr; U+02910 SquareUnion; U+02294
NotSquareSubsetEqual; U+022E2 REG; U+000AE Sscr; U+1D4AE
NotSquareSupersetEqual; U+022E3 REG U+000AE Star; U+022C6
NotSubsetEqual; U+02288 Racute; U+00154 Sub; U+022D0
NotSucceeds; U+02281 Rang; U+027EB Subset; U+022D0
NotSucceedsSlantEqual; U+022E1 Rarr; U+021A0 SubsetEqual; U+02286
NotSupersetEqual; U+02289 Rarrtl; U+02916 Succeeds; U+0227B
NotTilde; U+02241 Rcaron; U+00158 SucceedsEqual; U+02AB0
NotTildeEqual; U+02244 Rcedil; U+00156 SucceedsSlantEqual; U+0227D
NotTildeFullEqual; U+02247 Rcy; U+00420 SucceedsTilde; U+0227F
NotTildeTilde; U+02249 Re; U+0211C SuchThat; U+0220B
NotVerticalBar; U+02224 ReverseElement; U+0220B Sum; U+02211
Nscr; U+1D4A9 ReverseEquilibrium; U+021CB Sup; U+022D1
Ntilde; U+000D1 ReverseUpEquilibrium; U+0296F Superset; U+02283
Ntilde U+000D1 Rfr; U+0211C SupersetEqual; U+02287
Nu; U+0039D Rho; U+003A1 Supset; U+022D1
OElig; U+00152 RightAngleBracket; U+027E9 THORN; U+000DE
Oacute; U+000D3 RightArrow; U+02192 THORN U+000DE
Oacute U+000D3 RightArrowBar; U+021E5 TRADE; U+02122
Ocirc; U+000D4 RightArrowLeftArrow; U+021C4 TSHcy; U+0040B
Ocirc U+000D4 RightCeiling; U+02309 TScy; U+00426
Ocy; U+0041E RightDoubleBracket; U+027E7 Tab; U+00009
Odblac; U+00150 RightDownTeeVector; U+0295D Tau; U+003A4
Ofr; U+1D512 RightDownVector; U+021C2 Tcaron; U+00164
Ograve; U+000D2 RightDownVectorBar; U+02955 Tcedil; U+00162
Ograve U+000D2 RightFloor; U+0230B Tcy; U+00422
Omacr; U+0014C RightTee; U+022A2 Tfr; U+1D517
Omega; U+003A9 RightTeeArrow; U+021A6 Therefore; U+02234
Omicron; U+0039F RightTeeVector; U+0295B Theta; U+00398
Oopf; U+1D546 RightTriangle; U+022B3 ThinSpace; U+02009
OpenCurlyDoubleQuote; U+0201C RightTriangleBar; U+029D0 Tilde; U+0223C
OpenCurlyQuote; U+02018 RightTriangleEqual; U+022B5 TildeEqual; U+02243
Or; U+02A54 RightUpDownVector; U+0294F TildeFullEqual; U+02245
599
TildeTilde; U+02248 Xopf; U+1D54F aogon; U+00105
Topf; U+1D54B Xscr; U+1D4B3 aopf; U+1D552
TripleDot; U+020DB YAcy; U+0042F ap; U+02248
Tscr; U+1D4AF YIcy; U+00407 apE; U+02A70
Tstrok; U+00166 YUcy; U+0042E apacir; U+02A6F
Uacute; U+000DA Yacute; U+000DD ape; U+0224A
Uacute U+000DA Yacute U+000DD apid; U+0224B
Uarr; U+0219F Ycirc; U+00176 apos; U+00027
Uarrocir; U+02949 Ycy; U+0042B approx; U+02248
Ubrcy; U+0040E Yfr; U+1D51C approxeq; U+0224A
Ubreve; U+0016C Yopf; U+1D550 aring; U+000E5
Ucirc; U+000DB Yscr; U+1D4B4 aring U+000E5
Ucirc U+000DB Yuml; U+00178 ascr; U+1D4B6
Ucy; U+00423 ZHcy; U+00416 ast; U+0002A
Udblac; U+00170 Zacute; U+00179 asymp; U+02248
Ufr; U+1D518 Zcaron; U+0017D asympeq; U+0224D
Ugrave; U+000D9 Zcy; U+00417 atilde; U+000E3
Ugrave U+000D9 Zdot; U+0017B atilde U+000E3
Umacr; U+0016A ZeroWidthSpace; U+0200B auml; U+000E4
UnderBar; U+00332 Zeta; U+00396 auml U+000E4
UnderBrace; U+023DF Zfr; U+02128 awconint; U+02233
UnderBracket; U+023B5 Zopf; U+02124 awint; U+02A11
UnderParenthesis; U+023DD Zscr; U+1D4B5 bNot; U+02AED
Union; U+022C3 aacute; U+000E1 backcong; U+0224C
UnionPlus; U+0228E aacute U+000E1 backepsilon; U+003F6
Uogon; U+00172 abreve; U+00103 backprime; U+02035
Uopf; U+1D54C ac; U+0223E backsim; U+0223D
UpArrow; U+02191 acd; U+0223F backsimeq; U+022CD
UpArrowBar; U+02912 acirc; U+000E2 barvee; U+022BD
UpArrowDownArrow; U+021C5 acirc U+000E2 barwed; U+02305
UpDownArrow; U+02195 acute; U+000B4 barwedge; U+02305
UpEquilibrium; U+0296E acute U+000B4 bbrk; U+023B5
UpTee; U+022A5 acy; U+00430 bbrktbrk; U+023B6
UpTeeArrow; U+021A5 aelig; U+000E6 bcong; U+0224C
Uparrow; U+021D1 aelig U+000E6 bcy; U+00431
Updownarrow; U+021D5 af; U+02061 bdquo; U+0201E
UpperLeftArrow; U+02196 afr; U+1D51E becaus; U+02235
UpperRightArrow; U+02197 agrave; U+000E0 because; U+02235
Upsi; U+003D2 agrave U+000E0 bemptyv; U+029B0
Upsilon; U+003A5 alefsym; U+02135 bepsi; U+003F6
Uring; U+0016E aleph; U+02135 bernou; U+0212C
Uscr; U+1D4B0 alpha; U+003B1 beta; U+003B2
Utilde; U+00168 amacr; U+00101 beth; U+02136
Uuml; U+000DC amalg; U+02A3F between; U+0226C
Uuml U+000DC amp; U+00026 bfr; U+1D51F
VDash; U+022AB amp U+00026 bigcap; U+022C2
Vbar; U+02AEB and; U+02227 bigcirc; U+025EF
Vcy; U+00412 andand; U+02A55 bigcup; U+022C3
Vdash; U+022A9 andd; U+02A5C bigodot; U+02A00
Vdashl; U+02AE6 andslope; U+02A58 bigoplus; U+02A01
Vee; U+022C1 andv; U+02A5A bigotimes; U+02A02
Verbar; U+02016 ang; U+02220 bigsqcup; U+02A06
Vert; U+02016 ange; U+029A4 bigstar; U+02605
VerticalBar; U+02223 angle; U+02220 bigtriangledown; U+025BD
VerticalLine; U+0007C angmsd; U+02221 bigtriangleup; U+025B3
VerticalSeparator; U+02758 angmsdaa; U+029A8 biguplus; U+02A04
VerticalTilde; U+02240 angmsdab; U+029A9 bigvee; U+022C1
VeryThinSpace; U+0200A angmsdac; U+029AA bigwedge; U+022C0
Vfr; U+1D519 angmsdad; U+029AB bkarow; U+0290D
Vopf; U+1D54D angmsdae; U+029AC blacklozenge; U+029EB
Vscr; U+1D4B1 angmsdaf; U+029AD blacksquare; U+025AA
Vvdash; U+022AA angmsdag; U+029AE blacktriangle; U+025B4
Wcirc; U+00174 angmsdah; U+029AF blacktriangledown; U+025BE
Wedge; U+022C0 angrt; U+0221F blacktriangleleft; U+025C2
Wfr; U+1D51A angrtvb; U+022BE blacktriangleright; U+025B8
Wopf; U+1D54E angrtvbd; U+0299D blank; U+02423
Wscr; U+1D4B2 angsph; U+02222 blk12; U+02592
Xfr; U+1D51B angst; U+0212B blk14; U+02591
Xi; U+0039E angzarr; U+0237C blk34; U+02593
600
block; U+02588 capbrcup; U+02A49 cuepr; U+022DE
bnot; U+02310 capcap; U+02A4B cuesc; U+022DF
bopf; U+1D553 capcup; U+02A47 cularr; U+021B6
bot; U+022A5 capdot; U+02A40 cularrp; U+0293D
bottom; U+022A5 caret; U+02041 cup; U+0222A
bowtie; U+022C8 caron; U+002C7 cupbrcap; U+02A48
boxDL; U+02557 ccaps; U+02A4D cupcap; U+02A46
boxDR; U+02554 ccaron; U+0010D cupcup; U+02A4A
boxDl; U+02556 ccedil; U+000E7 cupdot; U+0228D
boxDr; U+02553 ccedil U+000E7 cupor; U+02A45
boxH; U+02550 ccirc; U+00109 curarr; U+021B7
boxHD; U+02566 ccups; U+02A4C curarrm; U+0293C
boxHU; U+02569 ccupssm; U+02A50 curlyeqprec; U+022DE
boxHd; U+02564 cdot; U+0010B curlyeqsucc; U+022DF
boxHu; U+02567 cedil; U+000B8 curlyvee; U+022CE
boxUL; U+0255D cedil U+000B8 curlywedge; U+022CF
boxUR; U+0255A cemptyv; U+029B2 curren; U+000A4
boxUl; U+0255C cent; U+000A2 curren U+000A4
boxUr; U+02559 cent U+000A2 curvearrowleft; U+021B6
boxV; U+02551 centerdot; U+000B7 curvearrowright; U+021B7
boxVH; U+0256C cfr; U+1D520 cuvee; U+022CE
boxVL; U+02563 chcy; U+00447 cuwed; U+022CF
boxVR; U+02560 check; U+02713 cwconint; U+02232
boxVh; U+0256B checkmark; U+02713 cwint; U+02231
boxVl; U+02562 chi; U+003C7 cylcty; U+0232D
boxVr; U+0255F cir; U+025CB dArr; U+021D3
boxbox; U+029C9 cirE; U+029C3 dHar; U+02965
boxdL; U+02555 circ; U+002C6 dagger; U+02020
boxdR; U+02552 circeq; U+02257 daleth; U+02138
boxdl; U+02510 circlearrowleft; U+021BA darr; U+02193
boxdr; U+0250C circlearrowright; U+021BB dash; U+02010
boxh; U+02500 circledR; U+000AE dashv; U+022A3
boxhD; U+02565 circledS; U+024C8 dbkarow; U+0290F
boxhU; U+02568 circledast; U+0229B dblac; U+002DD
boxhd; U+0252C circledcirc; U+0229A dcaron; U+0010F
boxhu; U+02534 circleddash; U+0229D dcy; U+00434
boxminus; U+0229F cire; U+02257 dd; U+02146
boxplus; U+0229E cirfnint; U+02A10 ddagger; U+02021
boxtimes; U+022A0 cirmid; U+02AEF ddarr; U+021CA
boxuL; U+0255B cirscir; U+029C2 ddotseq; U+02A77
boxuR; U+02558 clubs; U+02663 deg; U+000B0
boxul; U+02518 clubsuit; U+02663 deg U+000B0
boxur; U+02514 colon; U+0003A delta; U+003B4
boxv; U+02502 colone; U+02254 demptyv; U+029B1
boxvH; U+0256A coloneq; U+02254 dfisht; U+0297F
boxvL; U+02561 comma; U+0002C dfr; U+1D521
boxvR; U+0255E commat; U+00040 dharl; U+021C3
boxvh; U+0253C comp; U+02201 dharr; U+021C2
boxvl; U+02524 compfn; U+02218 diam; U+022C4
boxvr; U+0251C complement; U+02201 diamond; U+022C4
bprime; U+02035 complexes; U+02102 diamondsuit; U+02666
breve; U+002D8 cong; U+02245 diams; U+02666
brvbar; U+000A6 congdot; U+02A6D die; U+000A8
brvbar U+000A6 conint; U+0222E digamma; U+003DD
bscr; U+1D4B7 copf; U+1D554 disin; U+022F2
bsemi; U+0204F coprod; U+02210 div; U+000F7
bsim; U+0223D copy; U+000A9 divide; U+000F7
bsime; U+022CD copy U+000A9 divide U+000F7
bsol; U+0005C copysr; U+02117 divideontimes; U+022C7
bsolb; U+029C5 crarr; U+021B5 divonx; U+022C7
bull; U+02022 cross; U+02717 djcy; U+00452
bullet; U+02022 cscr; U+1D4B8 dlcorn; U+0231E
bump; U+0224E csub; U+02ACF dlcrop; U+0230D
bumpE; U+02AAE csube; U+02AD1 dollar; U+00024
bumpe; U+0224F csup; U+02AD0 dopf; U+1D555
bumpeq; U+0224F csupe; U+02AD2 dot; U+002D9
cacute; U+00107 ctdot; U+022EF doteq; U+02250
cap; U+02229 cudarrl; U+02938 doteqdot; U+02251
capand; U+02A44 cudarrr; U+02935 dotminus; U+02238
601
dotplus; U+02214 equals; U+0003D gel; U+022DB
dotsquare; U+022A1 equest; U+0225F geq; U+02265
doublebarwedge; U+02306 equiv; U+02261 geqq; U+02267
downarrow; U+02193 equivDD; U+02A78 geqslant; U+02A7E
downdownarrows; U+021CA eqvparsl; U+029E5 ges; U+02A7E
downharpoonleft; U+021C3 erDot; U+02253 gescc; U+02AA9
downharpoonright; U+021C2 erarr; U+02971 gesdot; U+02A80
drbkarow; U+02910 escr; U+0212F gesdoto; U+02A82
drcorn; U+0231F esdot; U+02250 gesdotol; U+02A84
drcrop; U+0230C esim; U+02242 gesles; U+02A94
dscr; U+1D4B9 eta; U+003B7 gfr; U+1D524
dscy; U+00455 eth; U+000F0 gg; U+0226B
dsol; U+029F6 eth U+000F0 ggg; U+022D9
dstrok; U+00111 euml; U+000EB gimel; U+02137
dtdot; U+022F1 euml U+000EB gjcy; U+00453
dtri; U+025BF euro; U+020AC gl; U+02277
dtrif; U+025BE excl; U+00021 glE; U+02A92
duarr; U+021F5 exist; U+02203 gla; U+02AA5
duhar; U+0296F expectation; U+02130 glj; U+02AA4
dwangle; U+029A6 exponentiale; U+02147 gnE; U+02269
dzcy; U+0045F fallingdotseq; U+02252 gnap; U+02A8A
dzigrarr; U+027FF fcy; U+00444 gnapprox; U+02A8A
eDDot; U+02A77 female; U+02640 gne; U+02A88
eDot; U+02251 ffilig; U+0FB03 gneq; U+02A88
eacute; U+000E9 fflig; U+0FB00 gneqq; U+02269
eacute U+000E9 ffllig; U+0FB04 gnsim; U+022E7
easter; U+02A6E ffr; U+1D523 gopf; U+1D558
ecaron; U+0011B filig; U+0FB01 grave; U+00060
ecir; U+02256 flat; U+0266D gscr; U+0210A
ecirc; U+000EA fllig; U+0FB02 gsim; U+02273
ecirc U+000EA fltns; U+025B1 gsime; U+02A8E
ecolon; U+02255 fnof; U+00192 gsiml; U+02A90
ecy; U+0044D fopf; U+1D557 gt; U+0003E
edot; U+00117 forall; U+02200 gt U+0003E
ee; U+02147 fork; U+022D4 gtcc; U+02AA7
efDot; U+02252 forkv; U+02AD9 gtcir; U+02A7A
efr; U+1D522 fpartint; U+02A0D gtdot; U+022D7
eg; U+02A9A frac12; U+000BD gtlPar; U+02995
egrave; U+000E8 frac12 U+000BD gtquest; U+02A7C
egrave U+000E8 frac13; U+02153 gtrapprox; U+02A86
egs; U+02A96 frac14; U+000BC gtrarr; U+02978
egsdot; U+02A98 frac14 U+000BC gtrdot; U+022D7
el; U+02A99 frac15; U+02155 gtreqless; U+022DB
elinters; U+023E7 frac16; U+02159 gtreqqless; U+02A8C
ell; U+02113 frac18; U+0215B gtrless; U+02277
els; U+02A95 frac23; U+02154 gtrsim; U+02273
elsdot; U+02A97 frac25; U+02156 hArr; U+021D4
emacr; U+00113 frac34; U+000BE hairsp; U+0200A
empty; U+02205 frac34 U+000BE half; U+000BD
emptyset; U+02205 frac35; U+02157 hamilt; U+0210B
emptyv; U+02205 frac38; U+0215C hardcy; U+0044A
emsp13; U+02004 frac45; U+02158 harr; U+02194
emsp14; U+02005 frac56; U+0215A harrcir; U+02948
emsp; U+02003 frac58; U+0215D harrw; U+021AD
eng; U+0014B frac78; U+0215E hbar; U+0210F
ensp; U+02002 frasl; U+02044 hcirc; U+00125
eogon; U+00119 frown; U+02322 hearts; U+02665
eopf; U+1D556 fscr; U+1D4BB heartsuit; U+02665
epar; U+022D5 gE; U+02267 hellip; U+02026
eparsl; U+029E3 gEl; U+02A8C hercon; U+022B9
eplus; U+02A71 gacute; U+001F5 hfr; U+1D525
epsi; U+003F5 gamma; U+003B3 hksearow; U+02925
epsilon; U+003B5 gammad; U+003DD hkswarow; U+02926
epsiv; U+003B5 gap; U+02A86 hoarr; U+021FF
eqcirc; U+02256 gbreve; U+0011F homtht; U+0223B
eqcolon; U+02255 gcirc; U+0011D hookleftarrow; U+021A9
eqsim; U+02242 gcy; U+00433 hookrightarrow; U+021AA
eqslantgtr; U+02A96 gdot; U+00121 hopf; U+1D559
eqslantless; U+02A95 ge; U+02265 horbar; U+02015
602
hscr; U+1D4BD kappa; U+003BA leq; U+02264
hslash; U+0210F kappav; U+003F0 leqq; U+02266
hstrok; U+00127 kcedil; U+00137 leqslant; U+02A7D
hybull; U+02043 kcy; U+0043A les; U+02A7D
hyphen; U+02010 kfr; U+1D528 lescc; U+02AA8
iacute; U+000ED kgreen; U+00138 lesdot; U+02A7F
iacute U+000ED khcy; U+00445 lesdoto; U+02A81
ic; U+02063 kjcy; U+0045C lesdotor; U+02A83
icirc; U+000EE kopf; U+1D55C lesges; U+02A93
icirc U+000EE kscr; U+1D4C0 lessapprox; U+02A85
icy; U+00438 lAarr; U+021DA lessdot; U+022D6
iecy; U+00435 lArr; U+021D0 lesseqgtr; U+022DA
iexcl; U+000A1 lAtail; U+0291B lesseqqgtr; U+02A8B
iexcl U+000A1 lBarr; U+0290E lessgtr; U+02276
iff; U+021D4 lE; U+02266 lesssim; U+02272
ifr; U+1D526 lEg; U+02A8B lfisht; U+0297C
igrave; U+000EC lHar; U+02962 lfloor; U+0230A
igrave U+000EC lacute; U+0013A lfr; U+1D529
ii; U+02148 laemptyv; U+029B4 lg; U+02276
iiiint; U+02A0C lagran; U+02112 lgE; U+02A91
iiint; U+0222D lambda; U+003BB lhard; U+021BD
iinfin; U+029DC lang; U+027E8 lharu; U+021BC
iiota; U+02129 langd; U+02991 lharul; U+0296A
ijlig; U+00133 langle; U+027E8 lhblk; U+02584
imacr; U+0012B lap; U+02A85 ljcy; U+00459
image; U+02111 laquo; U+000AB ll; U+0226A
imagline; U+02110 laquo U+000AB llarr; U+021C7
imagpart; U+02111 larr; U+02190 llcorner; U+0231E
imath; U+00131 larrb; U+021E4 llhard; U+0296B
imof; U+022B7 larrbfs; U+0291F lltri; U+025FA
imped; U+001B5 larrfs; U+0291D lmidot; U+00140
in; U+02208 larrhk; U+021A9 lmoust; U+023B0
incare; U+02105 larrlp; U+021AB lmoustache; U+023B0
infin; U+0221E larrpl; U+02939 lnE; U+02268
infintie; U+029DD larrsim; U+02973 lnap; U+02A89
inodot; U+00131 larrtl; U+021A2 lnapprox; U+02A89
int; U+0222B lat; U+02AAB lne; U+02A87
intcal; U+022BA latail; U+02919 lneq; U+02A87
integers; U+02124 late; U+02AAD lneqq; U+02268
intercal; U+022BA lbarr; U+0290C lnsim; U+022E6
intlarhk; U+02A17 lbbrk; U+02772 loang; U+027EC
intprod; U+02A3C lbrace; U+0007B loarr; U+021FD
iocy; U+00451 lbrack; U+0005B lobrk; U+027E6
iogon; U+0012F lbrke; U+0298B longleftarrow; U+027F5
iopf; U+1D55A lbrksld; U+0298F longleftrightarrow; U+027F7
iota; U+003B9 lbrkslu; U+0298D longmapsto; U+027FC
iprod; U+02A3C lcaron; U+0013E longrightarrow; U+027F6
iquest; U+000BF lcedil; U+0013C looparrowleft; U+021AB
iquest U+000BF lceil; U+02308 looparrowright; U+021AC
iscr; U+1D4BE lcub; U+0007B lopar; U+02985
isin; U+02208 lcy; U+0043B lopf; U+1D55D
isinE; U+022F9 ldca; U+02936 loplus; U+02A2D
isindot; U+022F5 ldquo; U+0201C lotimes; U+02A34
isins; U+022F4 ldquor; U+0201E lowast; U+02217
isinsv; U+022F3 ldrdhar; U+02967 lowbar; U+0005F
isinv; U+02208 ldrushar; U+0294B loz; U+025CA
it; U+02062 ldsh; U+021B2 lozenge; U+025CA
itilde; U+00129 le; U+02264 lozf; U+029EB
iukcy; U+00456 leftarrow; U+02190 lpar; U+00028
iuml; U+000EF leftarrowtail; U+021A2 lparlt; U+02993
iuml U+000EF leftharpoondown; U+021BD lrarr; U+021C6
jcirc; U+00135 leftharpoonup; U+021BC lrcorner; U+0231F
jcy; U+00439 leftleftarrows; U+021C7 lrhar; U+021CB
jfr; U+1D527 leftrightarrow; U+02194 lrhard; U+0296D
jmath; U+00237 leftrightarrows; U+021C6 lrm; U+0200E
jopf; U+1D55B leftrightharpoons; U+021CB lrtri; U+022BF
jscr; U+1D4BF leftrightsquigarrow; U+021AD lsaquo; U+02039
jsercy; U+00458 leftthreetimes; U+022CB lscr; U+1D4C1
jukcy; U+00454 leg; U+022DA lsh; U+021B0
603
lsim; U+02272 nap; U+02249 nrarr; U+0219B
lsime; U+02A8D napos; U+00149 nrightarrow; U+0219B
lsimg; U+02A8F napprox; U+02249 nrtri; U+022EB
lsqb; U+0005B natur; U+0266E nrtrie; U+022ED
lsquo; U+02018 natural; U+0266E nsc; U+02281
lsquor; U+0201A naturals; U+02115 nsccue; U+022E1
lstrok; U+00142 nbsp; U+000A0 nscr; U+1D4C3
lt; U+0003C nbsp U+000A0 nshortmid; U+02224
lt U+0003C ncap; U+02A43 nshortparallel; U+02226
ltcc; U+02AA6 ncaron; U+00148 nsim; U+02241
ltcir; U+02A79 ncedil; U+00146 nsime; U+02244
ltdot; U+022D6 ncong; U+02247 nsimeq; U+02244
lthree; U+022CB ncup; U+02A42 nsmid; U+02224
ltimes; U+022C9 ncy; U+0043D nspar; U+02226
ltlarr; U+02976 ndash; U+02013 nsqsube; U+022E2
ltquest; U+02A7B ne; U+02260 nsqsupe; U+022E3
ltrPar; U+02996 neArr; U+021D7 nsub; U+02284
ltri; U+025C3 nearhk; U+02924 nsube; U+02288
ltrie; U+022B4 nearr; U+02197 nsubseteq; U+02288
ltrif; U+025C2 nearrow; U+02197 nsucc; U+02281
lurdshar; U+0294A nequiv; U+02262 nsup; U+02285
luruhar; U+02966 nesear; U+02928 nsupe; U+02289
mDDot; U+0223A nexist; U+02204 nsupseteq; U+02289
macr; U+000AF nexists; U+02204 ntgl; U+02279
macr U+000AF nfr; U+1D52B ntilde; U+000F1
male; U+02642 nge; U+02271 ntilde U+000F1
malt; U+02720 ngeq; U+02271 ntlg; U+02278
maltese; U+02720 ngsim; U+02275 ntriangleleft; U+022EA
map; U+021A6 ngt; U+0226F ntrianglelefteq; U+022EC
mapsto; U+021A6 ngtr; U+0226F ntriangleright; U+022EB
mapstodown; U+021A7 nhArr; U+021CE ntrianglerighteq; U+022ED
mapstoleft; U+021A4 nharr; U+021AE nu; U+003BD
mapstoup; U+021A5 nhpar; U+02AF2 num; U+00023
marker; U+025AE ni; U+0220B numero; U+02116
mcomma; U+02A29 nis; U+022FC numsp; U+02007
mcy; U+0043C nisd; U+022FA nvDash; U+022AD
mdash; U+02014 niv; U+0220B nvHarr; U+02904
measuredangle; U+02221 njcy; U+0045A nvdash; U+022AC
mfr; U+1D52A nlArr; U+021CD nvinfin; U+029DE
mho; U+02127 nlarr; U+0219A nvlArr; U+02902
micro; U+000B5 nldr; U+02025 nvrArr; U+02903
micro U+000B5 nle; U+02270 nwArr; U+021D6
mid; U+02223 nleftarrow; U+0219A nwarhk; U+02923
midast; U+0002A nleftrightarrow; U+021AE nwarr; U+02196
midcir; U+02AF0 nleq; U+02270 nwarrow; U+02196
middot; U+000B7 nless; U+0226E nwnear; U+02927
middot U+000B7 nlsim; U+02274 oS; U+024C8
minus; U+02212 nlt; U+0226E oacute; U+000F3
minusb; U+0229F nltri; U+022EA oacute U+000F3
minusd; U+02238 nltrie; U+022EC oast; U+0229B
minusdu; U+02A2A nmid; U+02224 ocir; U+0229A
mlcp; U+02ADB nopf; U+1D55F ocirc; U+000F4
mldr; U+02026 not; U+000AC ocirc U+000F4
mnplus; U+02213 not U+000AC ocy; U+0043E
models; U+022A7 notin; U+02209 odash; U+0229D
mopf; U+1D55E notinva; U+02209 odblac; U+00151
mp; U+02213 notinvb; U+022F7 odiv; U+02A38
mscr; U+1D4C2 notinvc; U+022F6 odot; U+02299
mstpos; U+0223E notni; U+0220C odsold; U+029BC
mu; U+003BC notniva; U+0220C oelig; U+00153
multimap; U+022B8 notnivb; U+022FE ofcir; U+029BF
mumap; U+022B8 notnivc; U+022FD ofr; U+1D52C
nLeftarrow; U+021CD npar; U+02226 ogon; U+002DB
nLeftrightarrow; U+021CE nparallel; U+02226 ograve; U+000F2
nRightarrow; U+021CF npolint; U+02A14 ograve U+000F2
nVDash; U+022AF npr; U+02280 ogt; U+029C1
nVdash; U+022AE nprcue; U+022E0 ohbar; U+029B5
nabla; U+02207 nprec; U+02280 ohm; U+02126
nacute; U+00144 nrArr; U+021CF oint; U+0222E
604
olarr; U+021BA plusmn; U+000B1 rarrfs; U+0291E
olcir; U+029BE plusmn U+000B1 rarrhk; U+021AA
olcross; U+029BB plussim; U+02A26 rarrlp; U+021AC
oline; U+0203E plustwo; U+02A27 rarrpl; U+02945
olt; U+029C0 pm; U+000B1 rarrsim; U+02974
omacr; U+0014D pointint; U+02A15 rarrtl; U+021A3
omega; U+003C9 popf; U+1D561 rarrw; U+0219D
omicron; U+003BF pound; U+000A3 ratail; U+0291A
omid; U+029B6 pound U+000A3 ratio; U+02236
ominus; U+02296 pr; U+0227A rationals; U+0211A
oopf; U+1D560 prE; U+02AB3 rbarr; U+0290D
opar; U+029B7 prap; U+02AB7 rbbrk; U+02773
operp; U+029B9 prcue; U+0227C rbrace; U+0007D
oplus; U+02295 pre; U+02AAF rbrack; U+0005D
or; U+02228 prec; U+0227A rbrke; U+0298C
orarr; U+021BB precapprox; U+02AB7 rbrksld; U+0298E
ord; U+02A5D preccurlyeq; U+0227C rbrkslu; U+02990
order; U+02134 preceq; U+02AAF rcaron; U+00159
orderof; U+02134 precnapprox; U+02AB9 rcedil; U+00157
ordf; U+000AA precneqq; U+02AB5 rceil; U+02309
ordf U+000AA precnsim; U+022E8 rcub; U+0007D
ordm; U+000BA precsim; U+0227E rcy; U+00440
ordm U+000BA prime; U+02032 rdca; U+02937
origof; U+022B6 primes; U+02119 rdldhar; U+02969
oror; U+02A56 prnE; U+02AB5 rdquo; U+0201D
orslope; U+02A57 prnap; U+02AB9 rdquor; U+0201D
orv; U+02A5B prnsim; U+022E8 rdsh; U+021B3
oscr; U+02134 prod; U+0220F real; U+0211C
oslash; U+000F8 profalar; U+0232E realine; U+0211B
oslash U+000F8 profline; U+02312 realpart; U+0211C
osol; U+02298 profsurf; U+02313 reals; U+0211D
otilde; U+000F5 prop; U+0221D rect; U+025AD
otilde U+000F5 propto; U+0221D reg; U+000AE
otimes; U+02297 prsim; U+0227E reg U+000AE
otimesas; U+02A36 prurel; U+022B0 rfisht; U+0297D
ouml; U+000F6 pscr; U+1D4C5 rfloor; U+0230B
ouml U+000F6 psi; U+003C8 rfr; U+1D52F
ovbar; U+0233D puncsp; U+02008 rhard; U+021C1
par; U+02225 qfr; U+1D52E rharu; U+021C0
para; U+000B6 qint; U+02A0C rharul; U+0296C
para U+000B6 qopf; U+1D562 rho; U+003C1
parallel; U+02225 qprime; U+02057 rhov; U+003F1
parsim; U+02AF3 qscr; U+1D4C6 rightarrow; U+02192
parsl; U+02AFD quaternions; U+0210D rightarrowtail; U+021A3
part; U+02202 quatint; U+02A16 rightharpoondown; U+021C1
pcy; U+0043F quest; U+0003F rightharpoonup; U+021C0
percnt; U+00025 questeq; U+0225F rightleftarrows; U+021C4
period; U+0002E quot; U+00022 rightleftharpoons; U+021CC
permil; U+02030 quot U+00022 rightrightarrows; U+021C9
perp; U+022A5 rAarr; U+021DB rightsquigarrow; U+0219D
pertenk; U+02031 rArr; U+021D2 rightthreetimes; U+022CC
pfr; U+1D52D rAtail; U+0291C ring; U+002DA
phi; U+003C6 rBarr; U+0290F risingdotseq; U+02253
phiv; U+003C6 rHar; U+02964 rlarr; U+021C4
phmmat; U+02133 race; U+029DA rlhar; U+021CC
phone; U+0260E racute; U+00155 rlm; U+0200F
pi; U+003C0 radic; U+0221A rmoust; U+023B1
pitchfork; U+022D4 raemptyv; U+029B3 rmoustache; U+023B1
piv; U+003D6 rang; U+027E9 rnmid; U+02AEE
planck; U+0210F rangd; U+02992 roang; U+027ED
planckh; U+0210E range; U+029A5 roarr; U+021FE
plankv; U+0210F rangle; U+027E9 robrk; U+027E7
plus; U+0002B raquo; U+000BB ropar; U+02986
plusacir; U+02A23 raquo U+000BB ropf; U+1D563
plusb; U+0229E rarr; U+02192 roplus; U+02A2E
pluscir; U+02A22 rarrap; U+02975 rotimes; U+02A35
plusdo; U+02214 rarrb; U+021E5 rpar; U+00029
plusdu; U+02A25 rarrbfs; U+02920 rpargt; U+02994
pluse; U+02A72 rarrc; U+02933 rppolint; U+02A12
605
rrarr; U+021C9 smallsetminus; U+02216 sup2; U+000B2
rsaquo; U+0203A smashp; U+02A33 sup2 U+000B2
rscr; U+1D4C7 smeparsl; U+029E4 sup3; U+000B3
rsh; U+021B1 smid; U+02223 sup3 U+000B3
rsqb; U+0005D smile; U+02323 sup; U+02283
rsquo; U+02019 smt; U+02AAA supE; U+02AC6
rsquor; U+02019 smte; U+02AAC supdot; U+02ABE
rthree; U+022CC softcy; U+0044C supdsub; U+02AD8
rtimes; U+022CA sol; U+0002F supe; U+02287
rtri; U+025B9 solb; U+029C4 supedot; U+02AC4
rtrie; U+022B5 solbar; U+0233F suphsub; U+02AD7
rtrif; U+025B8 sopf; U+1D564 suplarr; U+0297B
rtriltri; U+029CE spades; U+02660 supmult; U+02AC2
ruluhar; U+02968 spadesuit; U+02660 supnE; U+02ACC
rx; U+0211E spar; U+02225 supne; U+0228B
sacute; U+0015B sqcap; U+02293 supplus; U+02AC0
sbquo; U+0201A sqcup; U+02294 supset; U+02283
sc; U+0227B sqsub; U+0228F supseteq; U+02287
scE; U+02AB4 sqsube; U+02291 supseteqq; U+02AC6
scap; U+02AB8 sqsubset; U+0228F supsetneq; U+0228B
scaron; U+00161 sqsubseteq; U+02291 supsetneqq; U+02ACC
sccue; U+0227D sqsup; U+02290 supsim; U+02AC8
sce; U+02AB0 sqsupe; U+02292 supsub; U+02AD4
scedil; U+0015F sqsupset; U+02290 supsup; U+02AD6
scirc; U+0015D sqsupseteq; U+02292 swArr; U+021D9
scnE; U+02AB6 squ; U+025A1 swarhk; U+02926
scnap; U+02ABA square; U+025A1 swarr; U+02199
scnsim; U+022E9 squarf; U+025AA swarrow; U+02199
scpolint; U+02A13 squf; U+025AA swnwar; U+0292A
scsim; U+0227F srarr; U+02192 szlig; U+000DF
scy; U+00441 sscr; U+1D4C8 szlig U+000DF
sdot; U+022C5 ssetmn; U+02216 target; U+02316
sdotb; U+022A1 ssmile; U+02323 tau; U+003C4
sdote; U+02A66 sstarf; U+022C6 tbrk; U+023B4
seArr; U+021D8 star; U+02606 tcaron; U+00165
searhk; U+02925 starf; U+02605 tcedil; U+00163
searr; U+02198 straightepsilon; U+003F5 tcy; U+00442
searrow; U+02198 straightphi; U+003D5 tdot; U+020DB
sect; U+000A7 strns; U+000AF telrec; U+02315
sect U+000A7 sub; U+02282 tfr; U+1D531
semi; U+0003B subE; U+02AC5 there4; U+02234
seswar; U+02929 subdot; U+02ABD therefore; U+02234
setminus; U+02216 sube; U+02286 theta; U+003B8
setmn; U+02216 subedot; U+02AC3 thetasym; U+003D1
sext; U+02736 submult; U+02AC1 thetav; U+003D1
sfr; U+1D530 subnE; U+02ACB thickapprox; U+02248
sfrown; U+02322 subne; U+0228A thicksim; U+0223C
sharp; U+0266F subplus; U+02ABF thinsp; U+02009
shchcy; U+00449 subrarr; U+02979 thkap; U+02248
shcy; U+00448 subset; U+02282 thksim; U+0223C
shortmid; U+02223 subseteq; U+02286 thorn; U+000FE
shortparallel; U+02225 subseteqq; U+02AC5 thorn U+000FE
shy; U+000AD subsetneq; U+0228A tilde; U+002DC
shy U+000AD subsetneqq; U+02ACB times; U+000D7
sigma; U+003C3 subsim; U+02AC7 times U+000D7
sigmaf; U+003C2 subsub; U+02AD5 timesb; U+022A0
sigmav; U+003C2 subsup; U+02AD3 timesbar; U+02A31
sim; U+0223C succ; U+0227B timesd; U+02A30
simdot; U+02A6A succapprox; U+02AB8 tint; U+0222D
sime; U+02243 succcurlyeq; U+0227D toea; U+02928
simeq; U+02243 succeq; U+02AB0 top; U+022A4
simg; U+02A9E succnapprox; U+02ABA topbot; U+02336
simgE; U+02AA0 succneqq; U+02AB6 topcir; U+02AF1
siml; U+02A9D succnsim; U+022E9 topf; U+1D565
simlE; U+02A9F succsim; U+0227F topfork; U+02ADA
simne; U+02246 sum; U+02211 tosa; U+02929
simplus; U+02A24 sung; U+0266A tprime; U+02034
simrarr; U+02972 sup1; U+000B9 trade; U+02122
slarr; U+02190 sup1 U+000B9 triangle; U+025B5
606
triangledown; U+025BF upsilon; U+003C5 wr; U+02240
triangleleft; U+025C3 upuparrows; U+021C8 wreath; U+02240
trianglelefteq; U+022B4 urcorn; U+0231D wscr; U+1D4CC
triangleq; U+0225C urcorner; U+0231D xcap; U+022C2
triangleright; U+025B9 urcrop; U+0230E xcirc; U+025EF
trianglerighteq; U+022B5 uring; U+0016F xcup; U+022C3
tridot; U+025EC urtri; U+025F9 xdtri; U+025BD
trie; U+0225C uscr; U+1D4CA xfr; U+1D535
triminus; U+02A3A utdot; U+022F0 xhArr; U+027FA
triplus; U+02A39 utilde; U+00169 xharr; U+027F7
trisb; U+029CD utri; U+025B5 xi; U+003BE
tritime; U+02A3B utrif; U+025B4 xlArr; U+027F8
trpezium; U+023E2 uuarr; U+021C8 xlarr; U+027F5
tscr; U+1D4C9 uuml; U+000FC xmap; U+027FC
tscy; U+00446 uuml U+000FC xnis; U+022FB
tshcy; U+0045B uwangle; U+029A7 xodot; U+02A00
tstrok; U+00167 vArr; U+021D5 xopf; U+1D569
twixt; U+0226C vBar; U+02AE8 xoplus; U+02A01
twoheadleftarrow; U+0219E vBarv; U+02AE9 xotime; U+02A02
twoheadrightarrow; U+021A0 vDash; U+022A8 xrArr; U+027F9
uArr; U+021D1 vangrt; U+0299C xrarr; U+027F6
uHar; U+02963 varepsilon; U+003B5 xscr; U+1D4CD
uacute; U+000FA varkappa; U+003F0 xsqcup; U+02A06
uacute U+000FA varnothing; U+02205 xuplus; U+02A04
uarr; U+02191 varphi; U+003C6 xutri; U+025B3
ubrcy; U+0045E varpi; U+003D6 xvee; U+022C1
ubreve; U+0016D varpropto; U+0221D xwedge; U+022C0
ucirc; U+000FB varr; U+02195 yacute; U+000FD
ucirc U+000FB varrho; U+003F1 yacute U+000FD
ucy; U+00443 varsigma; U+003C2 yacy; U+0044F
udarr; U+021C5 vartheta; U+003D1 ycirc; U+00177
udblac; U+00171 vartriangleleft; U+022B2 ycy; U+0044B
udhar; U+0296E vartriangleright; U+022B3 yen; U+000A5
ufisht; U+0297E vcy; U+00432 yen U+000A5
ufr; U+1D532 vdash; U+022A2 yfr; U+1D536
ugrave; U+000F9 vee; U+02228 yicy; U+00457
ugrave U+000F9 veebar; U+022BB yopf; U+1D56A
uharl; U+021BF veeeq; U+0225A yscr; U+1D4CE
uharr; U+021BE vellip; U+022EE yucy; U+0044E
uhblk; U+02580 verbar; U+0007C yuml; U+000FF
ulcorn; U+0231C vert; U+0007C yuml U+000FF
ulcorner; U+0231C vfr; U+1D533 zacute; U+0017A
ulcrop; U+0230F vltri; U+022B2 zcaron; U+0017E
ultri; U+025F8 vopf; U+1D567 zcy; U+00437
umacr; U+0016B vprop; U+0221D zdot; U+0017C
uml; U+000A8 vrtri; U+022B3 zeetrf; U+02128
uml U+000A8 vscr; U+1D4CB zeta; U+003B6
uogon; U+00173 vzigzag; U+0299A zfr; U+1D537
uopf; U+1D566 wcirc; U+00175 zhcy; U+00436
uparrow; U+02191 wedbar; U+02A5F zigrarr; U+021DD
updownarrow; U+02195 wedge; U+02227 zopf; U+1D56B
upharpoonleft; U+021BF wedgeq; U+02259 zscr; U+1D4CF
upharpoonright; U+021BE weierp; U+02118 zwj; U+0200D
uplus; U+0228E wfr; U+1D534 zwnj; U+0200C
upsi; U+003C5 wopf; U+1D568
upsih; U+003D2 wp; U+02118
607
10. Rendering and user-agent behavior
This section will probably include details on how to render DATAGRID (including its
pseudo-elements), drag-and-drop, etc, in a visual medium, in concert with CSS. Terms that
need to be defined include: sizing of embedded content
CSS UAs in visual media must, when scrolling a page to a fragment identifier, align the top of the
viewport with the target element's top border edge.
must define letting the user "obtain a physical form (or a representation of a physical
form)" of a document (printing) and what this means for the UA, in particular creating a new
view for the print media.
Must define that in CSS, tag names in HTML documents, and class names in quirks mode
documents, are case-insensitive.
10.1 Rendering and the DOM
This section is wrong. mediaMode will end up on Window, I think. All views implement
Window.
Any object implement the AbstractView interface must also implement the
MediaModeAbstractView interface.
interface MediaModeAbstractView {
readonly attribute DOMString mediaMode;
};
The mediaMode attribute on objects implementing the MediaModeAbstractView interface must

return the string that represents the canvas' current rendering mode (screen, print, etc). This
is a lowercase string, as defined by the CSS specification. [CSS21]
Some user agents may support multiple media, in which case there will exist multiple objects
implementing the AbstractView interface. Only the default view implements the Window
interface. The other views can be reached using the view attribute of the UIEvent interface,
during event propagation. There is no way currently to enumerate all the views.
608
10.2 Rendering and menus/toolbars
10.2.1 The 'icon' property
UAs should use the command's Icon as the default generic icon provided by the user agent when
the 'icon' property computes to 'auto' on an element that either defines a command or refers to
one using the command attribute, but when the property computes to an actual image, it should
use that image instead.
10.3 Obsolete elements, attributes, and APIs
10.3.1 The body element
Need to define the content attributes in terms of CSS or something.
[XXX] interface HTMLDocument {

attribute DOMString fgColor;
attribute DOMString bgColor;
attribute DOMString linkColor;
attribute DOMString vlinkColor;
attribute DOMString alinkColor;
};
The fgColor attribute on the Document object must reflect (page 55) the text attribute on the
body element (page 76).
The bgColor attribute on the Document object must reflect (page 55) the bgcolor attribute on
The linkColor attribute on the Document object must reflect (page 55) the link attribute on the
body element (page 76).
The vLinkColor attribute on the Document object must reflect (page 55) the vlink attribute on
The aLinkColor attribute on the Document object must reflect (page 55) the alink attribute on
[XXX] interface HTMLBodyElement {

attribute DOMString text;
attribute DOMString bgColor;
attribute DOMString background;
attribute DOMString link;
attribute DOMString vLink;
attribute DOMString aLink;
};
609
The text DOM attribute of the body element must reflect (page 55) the element's text content
attribute.
The bgColor DOM attribute of the body element must reflect (page 55) the element's bgcolor
content attribute.
The background DOM attribute of the body element must reflect (page 55) the element's
background content attribute.
The link DOM attribute of the body element must reflect (page 55) the element's link content
attribute.
The aLink DOM attribute of the body element must reflect (page 55) the element's alink
content attribute.
The vLink DOM attribute of the body element must reflect (page 55) the element's vlink
content attribute.
10.3.2 The applet element
The applet element is a Java-specific variant of the embed element. In HTML5 the applet
element is obsoleted so that all extension frameworks (Java, .NET, Flash, etc) are handled in a
consistent manner.
354) for which the applet element's document is the active document (page 354), then the
element must be ignored (it represents nothing).
Otherwise, define how the element works, if supported .
[XXX] interface HTMLDocument {

readonly attribute HTMLCollection applets;
};
The applets attribute must return an HTMLCollection rooted at the Document node, whose
filter matches only applet elements.
610
11. Things that you can't do with this specification because
they are better handled using other technologies that are
further described herein
There are certain features that are not handled by this specification because a client side
markup language is not the right level for them, or because the features exist in other languages
that can be integrated into this one. This section covers some of the more common requests.
11.1 Localization
If you wish to create localized versions of an HTML application, the best solution is to preprocess
the files on the server, and then use HTTP content negotiation to serve the appropriate
language.
11.2 Declarative 2D vector graphics and animation
Embedding vector graphics into XHTML documents is the domain of SVG.
11.3 Declarative 3D scenes
Embedding 3D imagery into XHTML documents is the domain of X3D, or technologies based on
X3D that are namespace-aware.
11.4 Timers
This section is expected to be moved to the Window Object specification in due course.
[NoInterfaceObject] interface WindowTimers {

// timers
long setTimeout(in TimeoutHandler handler, in long timeout);
long setTimeout(in TimeoutHandler handler, in long timeout,
arguments...);
long setTimeout(in DOMString code, in long timeout);
long setTimeout(in DOMString code, in long timeout, in DOMString
language);
void clearTimeout(in long handle);
long setInterval(in TimeoutHandler handler, in long timeout);
long setInterval(in TimeoutHandler handler, in long timeout,
arguments...);
long setInterval(in DOMString code, in long timeout);
611
long setInterval(in DOMString code, in long timeout, in DOMString
language);
void clearInterval(in long handle);
};
interface TimeoutHandler {
void handleEvent([Variadic] in any args);
};
The WindowTimers interface must be obtainable from any Window object using binding-specific
casting methods.
Actually even better would be to just mix it straight into Window somehow.
The setTimeout and setInterval methods allow authors to schedule timer-based events.
The setTimeout(handler, timeout[, arguments...]) method takes a reference to a

TimeoutHandler object and a length of time in milliseconds. It must return a handle to the
timeout created, and then asynchronously wait timeout milliseconds and then invoke
handleEvent() on the handler object. If any arguments... were provided, they must be passed
to the handler as arguments to the handleEvent() function.
Alternatively, setTimeout(code, timeout[, language]) may be used. This variant takes a

string instead of a TimeoutHandler object. That string must be parsed using the specified
language (defaulting to ECMAScript if the third argument is omitted) and executed in the scope
of the browsing context (page 354) associated with the Window object on which the
setTimeout() method was invoked.
Need to define language values.
The setInterval(...) variants must work in the same way as the setTimeout variants except
that if timeout is a value greater than zero, the handler or code must be invoked again every
timeout milliseconds, not just the once.
The clearTimeout() and clearInterval() methods take one integer (the value returned by
setTimeout and setInterval respectively) and must cancel the specified timeout. When called
with a value that does not correspond to an active timeout or interval, the methods must return
without doing anything.
Timeouts must never fire while another script is executing. (Thus the HTML scripting model is
strictly single-threaded and not reentrant.)
612
Index
List of elements
List of attributes
List of interfaces
List of events
613
References
This section will be written in a future draft.
614
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Aankhen, Aaron Boodman, Aaron Leventhal, Adam Barth, Adam Roben, Addison
Phillips, Adele Peterson, Adrian Sutton, Agustín Fernández, Alastair Campbell, Alexey
Feldgendler, Anders Carlsson, Andrew Gove, Andrew Sidwell, Anne van Kesteren, Anthony
Hickson, Anthony Ricaud, Antti Koivisto, Arphen Lin, Asbjørn Ulsberg, Ashley Sheridan, Aurelien
Levy, Ben Godfrey, Ben Meadowcroft, Ben Millard, Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis, Bert Bos, Billy Wong,
Bjoern Hoehrmann, Boris Zbarsky, Brad Fults, Brad Neuberg, Brady Eidson, Brendan Eich, Brett
Wilson, Brian Campbell, Brian Smith, Bruce Miller, Cameron McCormack, Carlos Perelló Marín,
Chao Cai, ??? (Channy Yun), Charl van Niekerk, Charles Iliya Krempeaux, Charles
McCathieNevile, Christian Biesinger, Christian Johansen, Chriswa, Cole Robison, Collin Jackson,
Daniel Brumbaugh Keeney, Daniel Glazman, Daniel Peng, Daniel Spång, Daniel Steinberg, Danny
Sullivan, Darin Adler, Darin Fisher, Dave Camp, Dave Singer, Dave Townsend, David Baron,
David Bloom, David Carlisle, David Flanagan, David Håsäther, David Hyatt, Dean Edridge, Debi
Orton, Derek Featherstone, DeWitt Clinton, Dimitri Glazkov, dolphinling, Doron Rosenberg, Doug
Kramer, Eira Monstad, Elliotte Harold, Eric Law, Erik Arvidsson, Evan Martin, Evan Prodromou,
fantasai, Felix Sasaki, Franck 'Shift' Quélain, Garrett Smith, Geoffrey Garen, Geoffrey Sneddon,
Håkon Wium Lie, Henri Sivonen, Henrik Lied, Henry Mason, Hugh Winkler, Ignacio Javier, Ivo
Emanuel Gonçalves, J. King, Jacques Distler, James Graham, James Justin Harrell, James M Snell,
James Perrett, Jan-Klaas Kollhof, Jason White, Jasper Bryant-Greene, Jeff Cutsinger, Jeff Walden,
Jens Bannmann, Jens Fendler, Jeroen van der Meer, Jim Jewett, Jim Meehan, Joe Clark, Jjgod Jiang,
Joel Spolsky, Johan Herland, John Boyer, John Bussjaeger, John Harding, Johnny Stenback, Jon
Perlow, Jonathan Worent, Jorgen Horstink, Josh Levenberg, Joshua Randall, Jukka K. Korpela,
Julian Reschke, Kai Hendry, Kornel Lesinski, ???? (KUROSAWA Takeshi), Kristof Zelechovski,
Lachlan Hunt, Larry Page, Lars Gunther, Laura L. Carlson, Laura Wisewell, Laurens Holst, Lee
Kowalkowski, Leif Halvard Silli, Lenny Domnitser, Léonard Bouchet, Leons Petrazickis, Logan,
Loune, Maciej Stachowiak, Magnus Kristiansen, Malcolm Rowe, Mark Nottingham, Mark Rowe,
Mark Schenk, Martijn Wargers, Martin Atkins, Martin Dürst, Martin Honnen, Masataka Yakura,
Mathieu Henri, Matthew Mastracci, Matthew Raymond, Matthew Thomas, Mattias Waldau, Max
Romantschuk, Michael 'Ratt' Iannarelli, Michael A. Nachbaur, Michael A. Puls II, Michael Carter,
Michael Gratton, Michael Powers, Michael(tm) Smith, Michel Fortin, Michiel van der Blonk, Mihai
Şucan, Mike Brown, Mike Dierken, Mike Dixon, Mike Schinkel, Mike Shaver, Mikko Rantalainen,
Neil Deakin, Neil Soiffer, Olaf Hoffmann, Olav Junker Kjær, Oliver Hunt, Peter Karlsson, Peter
Kasting, Philip Jägenstedt, Philip Taylor, Philip TAYLOR, Rachid Finge, Rajas Moonka, Ralf Stoltze,
Ralph Giles, Raphael Champeimont, Rene Saarsoo, Richard Ishida, Rimantas Liubertas, Robert
Blaut, Robert O'Callahan, Robert Sayre, Roman Ivanov, S. Mike Dierken, Sam Ruby, Sam Weinig,
Scott Hess, Sean Knapp, Shaun Inman, Silvia Pfeiffer, Simon Pieters, Stefan Haustein, Stephen
Ma, Steve Faulkner, Steve Runyon, Steven Garrity, Stewart Brodie, Stuart Parmenter, Sunava
Dutta, Tantek Çelik, Terrence Wood, Thomas Broyer, Thomas O'Connor, Tim Altman, Tim
Johansson, Tyler Close, Vladimir Vukićević, Wakaba, Wayne Pollock, William Swanson, Yi-An
Huang, and Øistein E. Andersen, for their useful and substantial comments.
Thanks also to everyone who has ever posted about HTML5 to their blogs, public mailing lists, or
forums, including the W3C public-html list and the various WHATWG lists.
Special thanks to Richard Williamson for creating the first implementation of canvas in Safari,
from which the canvas feature was designed.
615
Special thanks also to the Microsoft employees who first implemented the event-based
drag-and-drop mechanism, contenteditable, and other features first widely deployed by the
Windows Internet Explorer browser.
Special thanks and $10,000 to David Hyatt who came up with a broken implementation of the
adoption agency algorithm (page 571) that the editor had to reverse engineer and fix before
using it in the parsing section.
Thanks to the many sources that provided inspiration for the examples used in the specification.
Thanks also to the Microsoft blogging community for some ideas, to the attendees of the W3C
Workshop on Web Applications and Compound Documents for inspiration, and to the #mrt crew,
the #mrt.no crew, the #whatwg crew, and the cabal for their ideas and support.
616

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HTML 5

Draft Recommendation — 7 July 2008

PDF print versions:

Different parts of this specification are at different levels of maturity.

2. Common infrastructure (page 21)

3. Semantics and structure of HTML documents (page 71)

4. The elements of HTML (page 100)

5. Web browsers (page 354)

6. User Interaction (page 452)

8. Repetition templates (page 508)

9. The HTML syntax (page 509)

10. Rendering and user-agent behavior (page 608)

Index (page 613)

References (page 614)

Acknowledgements (page 615)

This section is non-normative.

This section is non-normative.

This specification is limited to providing a semantic-level markup language and associated

1.3 Relationships to other specifications

1.3.1 Relationship to HTML 4.01 and DOM2 HTML

This section is non-normative.

1.3.2 Relationship to XHTML 1.x

This section is non-normative.

1.3.3 Relationship to XHTML2

This section is non-normative.

This section is non-normative.

1.3.5 Relationship to XUL, Flash, Silverlight, and other proprietary UI

This section is non-normative.

1.4 HTML vs XHTML

This section is non-normative.

1.5 Structure of this specification

This section is non-normative.

This specification is divided into the following major sections:

Common Infrastructure (page 21)

The DOM (page 71)

Elements (page 100)

Web Browsers (page 354)

User Interaction (page 452)

The Communication APIs (page 486)

Repetition Templates (page 508)

The Language Syntax (page 509)

2.1 Conformance requirements

Note: There is no implied relationship between document conformance

Web browsers and other interactive user agents

A conforming XHTML processor would, upon finding an XHTML script element in an

Non-interactive presentation user agents

A non-interactive but dynamic presentation UA would still execute scripts, allowing

User agents with no scripting support

Note: Scripting can form an integral part of an application. Web browsers

XML DTDs cannot express all the conformance requirements of this

To put it another way, there are three types of conformance criteria:

2. Criteria that cannot be expressed by a DTD, but can still be checked

3. Criteria that can only be checked by a human.

Data mining tools

Authoring tools and markup generators

Note: In terms of conformance checking, an editor is therefore required to

Some conformance requirements are phrased as requirements on elements, attributes, methods

Conformance requirements phrased as algorithms or specific steps may be implemented in any

This specification relies on several other underlying specifications.

Note: This specification might have certain additional requirements on

2.1.2 Features defined in other specifications

this section will be removed at some point

The interface DOMTimeStamp is defined in DOM3 Core. [DOM3CORE]